


Backwards Through Time

by deathbypastry



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Smut, Forbidden Colors, Garcia Flynn is definitely my Spirit Animal, Lucy Preston is a genius, New Safehouse, Rittenhouse on the Run, Saving the Universe and all that, So Many Garcy Moments, Sweet, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathbypastry/pseuds/deathbypastry
Summary: The Time Team has to retrace their steps through history to save Rufus, restore the timeline, and destroy Rittenhouse. Can they do it before they are destroyed themselves?I started writing this before the 2 hour movie (which I'm ignoring) and am determined to finish it. My first fanfic ever. Picks up at the end of Season 2. Garcia Flynn has utterly ruined me.All comments welcome as I'm trying to become a better writer. Thanks!





	1. New Safehouse & Lucy #126

**Author's Note:**

> I'm learning to write. Thought I'd start with some Garcy Fic (can someone please find me a Garcia Flynn!!!). I have a whole story in my head, but how, oh how, to get it down on paper??? Practicing on you poor souls. Go easy on me. Constructive criticism always welcome. 
> 
> P.S. I love typos. We are in a relationship!
> 
> P.S.S. I don't own anything except my ideas. They come from a dark and seedy place. There will be smut.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Lucy says, looking around. The building is tall, maybe 15 stories, and she’s standing in the center in a large circular atrium, which goes all the way up to the ceiling. Balconies on either side of the atrium circle the central space she stands in. The building looks old, and is mostly unfinished, but it’s actually, dare she say, kind of nice. Especially compared to the bunker.

“Welcome to your new safe house,” says Future Wyatt, as he exits the upgraded lifeboat. “We’ve been working out of this place for a while now. It’s time for you guys to take it over.”

“Great, time travel hand-me-downs.” Flynn snarks. Lucy glances over at him, one corner of her mouth turned up in a slight smirk. She looks away when she sees him catch her glance.

“Cool building. Is this a hotel?” says Jiya, stepping down from the lifeboat.

“Yeah, well it was. It was sold in the 50s but the new owners ran out of money during the remodel and had to stop working on it. We” . . . he pauses looking around, considering that maybe he shouldn’t say too much . . . “We, uh, made a few time trips to make sure it was upgraded the way we wanted, so we would have this big central, protected space for the lifeboat. We also made sure nobody could ever trace it to us.”

“What?” Lucy probes.

“This place is ours,” says Future Wyatt. “Well yours now. We call it our home base.” Looking between her and Flynn, he continues. “The walls are triple reinforced concrete with steel girders. And energy is routed in through a series of hidden sources. This lets us hide the time machine from Rittenhouse and any other prying eyes. We’ve been in this place for about 3 years and nobody's ever found us.”

“I trust it has enough rooms for everyone?” Flynn asks. Wyatt nods.

“And windows,” says Lucy gratefully. God, she missed the light.

Before anyone can probe for more information, the room begins to vibrate and the second lifeboat whooshes in. Future Lucy, Agent Christopher, Connor, and Wyatt exit one by one, Connor looking queasier than ever. If Denise’s first time travel trip affected her, she’s not letting on.

“Alright Team,” says Denise, “I know having to leave the old safe house on short notice was not what any of us had in mind."

“Yeah, I miss it already,” says Flynn, rolling his eyes.

Denise casts an oh-be-quiet look at him, then continues. “But Rittenhouse was on the way and we needed to get out of there. This place is our new home base. Future Lucy and Wyatt can tell us more about it later. Right now, I'm told we need to focus on getting Rufus back.” She looks to Future Lucy and Wyatt. “Now how do we do that?”

“We can get Rufus back, but there are a few things you need to know,” says Future Lucy. “First, we’re allowed to exist in our own timeline, but not for too long . . . 2 days is the longest we’ve ever stayed.”

“That means we have two days to get you guys up to speed and get out of here,” adds Future Wyatt.

“Second, and listen, this is important. We can’t touch the other _us_ while we’re here . . . In other words, I can’t touch Lucy and she can’t touch me. The same is true for Wyatt and Wyatt.”

“Wait, so what happens if you touch?” Jiya says, looking from Future Lucy to Lucy.

Future Lucy and Wyatt look at each other knowingly and pause. “Well . . . um . . . if you touch the other _you_ in the same timeline . . . the one who was touched disappears.”

“I’m sorry, what?” asks Lucy, shocked at what she just heard. “So, if you touch me, I’ll disappear? To where?”

Flynn feels a rising sense of panic inside him. Is this why they are here . . . to make Lucy and Wyatt disappear and, who knows, become them in this timeline? Wyatt, well that might be okay, after all he is a pain in the ass (future Wyatt at least seems to be able to be in a room with him), but not Lucy. “Yes, to where?” he demands.

“Gone, from time,” Future Lucy says in close to a whisper. “Forever.”

“Erased,” adds Future Wyatt.

“Wait, so you know this for sure? You’ve actually seen it happen?” implores Flynn as he looks over at Lucy, worried he has a new threat to protect her from.

“Yes. Numerous times,” says Future Lucy. “We’ll explain it all, but right now it’s important that we all understand the rules. We don’t want anyone to disappear. Not you, not us. We all have work to do, and we have to do it together.”

Flynn seems to relax a little, for now, but he thinks to himself that he needs to make sure the two Lucys keep their distance.

“We need to save Rufus and destroy Rittenhouse," she continues. But you have to understand that you can’t exist in the same time _and_ space as another one of yourselves.”

“I’m sorry,” Lucy interrupts, “ _as another one of yourselves_? Exactly how many selves of us are out there?”

She looks Lucy in the eye now, wondering how she can answer this without freaking her younger self out. There’s really no keeping this from her, or any of them, so she may as well just out with it. “Right now, there are more than 100 of us Lucys. One for every time jump we’ve ever made.”

Her reply hits Lucy like a brick and her mind begins to race uncontrollably. More than 100 Lucys? A hundred of me? How is that even possible? Are they all _me_? Are they the same, just with more time? Are they different? God, does that mean there are 100 Flynns too? She can barely deal with one Garcia Flynn, let alone 100s.

Lucy comes back, half recalling the audible gasp she heard behind her before she became lost in thought. The rest of the group looks, well, stupefied. “What do you mean there are 100 Lucys? That doesn’t make any sense,” says Denise.

“Let me explain,” says Future Lucy. “Remember when we first started all this, we all thought that we were going back in time on a single, linear timeline? We believed that when we’d travel back, anything we did would change the future . . . the future we knew . . . our future, and it would also change the past that we came from. And every time we'd jump, we'd travel and change that same timeline.”

“That’s right,” says Lucy.

“Well, we were wrong. We were dead wrong. Every time we jump, we actually create a parallel timeline. This new, parallel timeline is identical to the original one, that is until we change it in the past with our actions.”

“Well identical except for the hole that we punch in time when we jump,” adds Future Wyatt.

“Yeah, and that,” Future Lucy continues. “Each time we use the lifeboat to go back in time, we create another parallel timeline and another hole in the fabric of spacetime."

“Mason and the team figured this out a few months ago . . . I mean our Mason figured it out . . . in a parallel timeline, from your future. That’s where we came from,” says Future Wyatt.

Flynn chimes in. “How many parallel timelines are we talking about here?"

“A lot,” replies Future Lucy, looking at him in unwavering seriousness. We’re from 5 years in the future . . . your future . . . and I’m the 126th Lucy. So, I'm from the 126th parallel timeline." Flynn gasps. "It’s the number of times I’ve time traveled.” She looks over to Lucy, “You are the 26th Lucy. You’ve jumped 26 times. Give or take,” she adds. “Remembering every possible past and each branch has been hard. That’s why I finally started keeping a journal. Like the one I gave to you,” she looks to Flynn.

Flynn’s jaw drops a little more. She is looking at him intently now. Those brown eyes he’s come to know so well reaching into his soul as they often do. This Lucy looks like a badass Indiana Jane on the outside, but in her eyes, he sees a flicker of, what is that, weariness, and then maybe a flash of longing. This is definitely his Lucy, but she’s changed. Seen more pain perhaps. Instinctually, part of him wants to protect and comfort her. He considers it, until he looks over at his Lucy. She looks weary and confused herself.

“Th-the journal you gave him?” Lucy says with a slight stutter.

“Yes.” she replies.

Wait, does he finally, _finally_ , have proof that Lucy, well Future Lucy actually, gave him her journal? Proof from her own lips, Flynn wonders . . .

“Wait, wait, wait! So, if what you’re saying is true,” Jiya jumps in, “with each time jump, a duplicate timeline is created . . . and a duplicate _us_ are created in that new timeline. That would mean Rufus is alive, back in the previous timeline, timeline #25 or whatever, which is when he jumped to Chinatown to find me. Is that right?”

“Yes,” they say in unison. “Exactly.”

“How do we get back there? How do we get back to him?” Jiya exclaims eagerly.

“Through the holes. And we’re here to help you do just that.”

“So, what you’re saying is,” interjects Flynn, “you’re one Lucy, Lucy126, from 100 branches and 5 years into our future, and you’re here to help us save Rufus by teaching us how to jump through time holes?”

“Yes,” Future Lucy responds with a soft smile toward him. She glances over to Lucy next. “I was you once. Lucy26 as Flynn would call you, I guess,” chuckling to herself, then becoming serious. “We were both in Chinatown when we lost Rufus 5 years ago,” motioning between her and Future Wyatt. “We know everything you're going through. If you were to follow our path from this moment forward, Rittenhouse, with Emma at the helm, will jump again in two days to Philadelphia, September 17, 1787, and you’ll follow them, trying to stop them . . . “

“From interfering with the signing of the Declaration of Independence,” interrupts Lucy.

“Yes,” Future Lucy continues. “You’ll stop Emma, this time, but you’ll follow her through time, always chasing her, trying to stop her, and you’ll do it for the next 5 years. You’ll win some, you’ll lose some, and . . . you’ll lose more of this team,” she glances down at the floor not wanting to reveal too much. She looks up determined, “and you’ll be no closer to destroying Rittenhouse or fixing history than you are today!”

Future Wyatt steps closer to Future Lucy, “but we’re here to change that. We're ready to end this. We’re not just here to save Rufus. We believe that if we do this right, if we work together, we can destroy Rittenhouse, restore the history that we all remember, and make it so Rittenhouse never existed.”

Flynn and Lucy stare at the future duo, looking puzzled, their heads swimming with so many questions. So beyond shocked, neither of them says a word though. Where is Rufus when you need someone to explain complex crazy time travel shit in an understandable way?

“Basically,” says Future Lucy, “we think we’ve found a way to get us all back to the timeline when Amy was alive, before Flynn ever stole the Mothership, before we lost Rufus, before any of us have suffered the way we all have, and we can do it so that history is corrected and Rittenhouse is gone. We're asking you to trust us.”

The room is silent, looks of shock and confusion on each team member’s face. Nobody is sure what to say, or even if they really understood all the intricacies of what they just heard. Could it really be true? Could they really get back to their original timeline before all this time traveling insanity started? How is that possible? What would that even look like? Would they still know each other? Would they remember all they’d been through together? And how the hell would they get rid of Rittenhouse and Little Miss Rittenbitch, Emma, along the way?

Future Lucy steps closer to the group and slaps her hand on a table to bring everyone back from their thoughts, “so are you guys in, or what? Shall we go save Rufus?”


	2. Two Lucys, One Flynn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Flynn and Lucy talk. Well, two Lucys.

“So that’s the plan,” finishes Future Wyatt. “If there are no more questions, I say those traveling tomorrow get some sleep. Jiya and Connor, you’re with me. We’ll go over the lifeboat upgrades before you hit the sack. Denise, you should join us.”

“Once you’re done there Denise,” says Future Lucy, “we’ll take you through the specs on our home base. The rest of you, follow me, I’ll show you your rooms.”

She leads them up a small flight of stairs to a row of rooms on the second floor balcony overlooking the atrium where the lifeboats are docked and charging. “There are plenty of rooms to go around, but these are the ones we’ve been using,” she says. "Wyatt, you’re on the north end of the row, Flynn, you’re on the south.”

“Soldiers at each entry point,” says Wyatt.

“Exactly,” she continues. “There’s a room for Denise next to you Wyatt, then Connor, then Jiya, and then Lucy. These rooms have been used by you, well future yous, already, so the stuff in there is technically yours. Make yourselves at home. This is your base now. The other Wyatt and I can crash in the spare rooms on the upper floors. I suggest everyone get some rest. You’re going to need it. Once we jump back to Chinatown tomorrow, we’re going to have to keep going with the plan until Rittenhouse is destroyed. There won’t be much sleep for any of us.”

Exhausted, they each enter their respective rooms and close the door. A few moments later, Flynn hears a knock. “Can we talk,” says Future Lucy, standing outside with questioning eyes.

He nods reluctantly, holds the door open for her as she enters, ducking under his arm. He’s not sure how much more news he can take from her tonight. His brain is still reeling from everything that’s happened over the last few hours. And his arm hurts from the damn gunshot wound, courtesy of Emma.

“Flynn,” she begins, “I just wanted to tell you, wanted you to know, while I have a chance to say it, that I’m sorry.” He looks at her quizzically. “I’m sorry for giving you that journal the way I did, without any explanation. I know the last few years have been tough, and I know I set you off on this whole destroy Rittenhouse quest. All I can say is you needed to go on the journey you’ve been on. So did I, I mean Lucy, I mean this timeline’s Lucy.”

Flynn closes his eyes briefly and sighs, then says quietly, “you could've told me _how_ you and I would be working together in the future. That you would be fighting me at first, that we’d be enemies, only to start working together later. You could’ve told me that you would betray me and I’d spend months in prison, almost getting killed by Rittenhouse on multiple occasions, now a wanted terrorist.” He’s starting to raise his voice now. “You couldn’t have clued me in, just a little bit, that Lucy would get stabbed in Salem and almost die from an infection, that Jessica would betray us, that Rufus would die.” None of this crossed your mind as being slightly useful intel in this war with Rittenhouse that you supposedly opened the door for me to come into?”

“You have every right to be mad. I did get you into this. We needed you. We needed you to steal the Mothership before Rittenhouse did. With your background, your training, what Rittenhouse did to you, to your family, and you were on the run. A part of me thought you needed us as much as we needed you.”

“And now,” he asks, “where am I now? Where is Future Flynn in all of this parallel timeline technical bullshit, Flynn one-hundred-and-whatever? Am I dead . . . or worse? Am I not needed anymore in this war that you seem to be at the center of, and have been from the very beginning?”

His words make her sad. The fact that he thinks he can ever not be needed hits her hard. “Of course, you’re still needed. We need you, Flynn. You’re part of this team now." She pauses, then goes on. " _I_ need you.”

She walks over to him, standing just a few inches away, looking him directly in the eye, a regretful look on her face. “I _am_ sorry Flynn. I’m sorry for bringing you into this. Instead I wish I could have saved Lorena and Iris and you would have never known about this stupid war. I did what I thought was right. I still think it was right. I know it doesn’t make any sense to you now, but it will, one day. I need you to trust me a little longer.”

She leans up, putting her hands on his shoulders, and kisses him gently on the cheek, lingering for a few moments. She starts to hug him when she hears him groan a bit; she's brushed across his wound. “I'm so sorry. I know you’re in pain. I’m going to go, but before I do, one last thing.”

She walks toward the front door of the room, stopping short and turning toward a second door nearby. He thinks it's maybe a closet, but it has locks on it. He then realizes that it's actually a door to join two rooms. This makes sense, this place was actually a hotel at one point. She knocks a few times. They hear the locks unlocking and Lucy, present day Lucy, opens the door looking surprised. She wasn’t expecting her future self to be on the other side of this door. Heck, she hadn’t even realized this door was there yet. Man, she’s tired. “Um, hi.” she says.

“I know you both are tired, but I don’t know when or if we’ll get a chance to talk about this again. Can you come in?” she says.

“Yeah, sure.” Lucy walks in and looks back and forth between Flynn and her future self. Flynn looks tired, and a bit distressed. He’s rubbing his arm again. It seems to be bleeding a bit and it must hurt.

She notices a little blood on Future Lucy’s arm. Is that his blood? For a moment Lucy feels, what is that, jealousy? Can you even be jealous of yourself? What _were_ they doing in here exactly? “So, what have you guys been talking about,” she asks, trying to act casual.

“I’ve been telling Flynn about the journal and I wanted you to hear it directly from me. I did give it to him. And since I’m you from the future, that means you gave it to him, or will give it to him. It’s time for you to accept that. I, we, did what we thought was right and it will make sense in time. That’s all I can tell you right now. Flynn can tell you the rest. I know he will. He always tells us the truth. But I wanted you to hear it from me. You’re going to have to trust me, trust us. Both of you,” she finishes.

There is a long pause before she adds, “I’m going to go meet up with Denise now about the base specs and tomorrow we’ll go get Rufus.” She turns toward the door, glancing back briefly “oh and check on his arm, will ya? He’s bleeding again.”

They watch her leave, and then look at each other. “Well that was cryptic,” sighs Lucy. “I haven’t decided if I like her or can’t stand her.” Flynn smiles slightly, but it leaves as quickly as it came. “Hey, let me take a look at your arm? It _is_ bleeding again.”

Flynn nods and she motions him to sit on the sofa. He has a large room, larger than hers. Makes sense given he’s so damn tall. The hall from the front door to the room’s main opening is really wide, maybe for wheelchair access or something. A closet behind the front door is part way open. She can see some clothes sticking out, undoubtedly his turtleneck collection. The side door to her room is on one side of the hall, and a bathroom on the other. Finally, they all don’t have to share a bathroom anymore. Thank god.

The grey couch Flynn is now sitting on is in the wider room, with a desk full of books and journals on the wall next to it. Next to that is a small nightstand and a king size bed. It’s nice to see he actually has a bed that fits him this time. Poor guy. Although, at least he had a bed and not some crappy old couch.

The window next to his bed has the blinds closed, and a few of the drawers on the dresser across from the foot of the bed are part way open. She can see some papers tucked in the corners of the mirror of the dresser, too far away to see, and next to that is a large wooden cabinet. She’s guessing if she opened it up it would probably be full of guns. Or maybe more turtlenecks. Probably guns wearing turtlenecks.

She walks over to Flynn, who has already taken off the sling and is trying to get his turtleneck off. Geez, does this man own any button up shirts? He probably gets injured enough that he should invest in at least a few, not that she minds.

She helps his injured arm out of the shirt, and he pulls it over his neck, keeping the other arm covered. Shit, he's hot. Something warm rises in the pit of her stomach. Come on Lucy, she thinks to herself, focus here. She'd rather focus on his bare chest, but turns back to the wound.

It's still bleeding. He’s lucky that the bullet hit his upper arm and went clean through, but he’s never going to heal if he keeps using it. “I’m going to clean up this blood, disinfect it again and wrap it,” she tells him.

“It’s okay, I can do it,” he utters, moving to grab the first aid kit off his desk.

“No! I’m going to do it, sit still. And you need to stop using your arm. It’s never going to heal properly if you don’t quit moving it,” she scolds, trying to hide the fact that she is utterly distracted by his toned arms and chest. She grabs the first aid kit out of his hand. He doesn’t argue with her.

Her touch is soft, he immediately notices. So soft he almost can’t bare it. Dammit, why is it that he can’t focus when she touches him? Or looks at him? Or says his name? Or generally enters his mind at all. Dammit Flynn, get a grip, he thinks. Let her work and don’t make her life any more complicated than it already is. She needs you to be strong, a soldier, help her defeat Rittenhouse, not get her involved in any more romantic drama. Lord know she's been through enough of that. He refocuses.

“She knocked on my door and wanted to talk,” he says, looking at Lucy who is on the couch next to him, cleaning his arm. “She said she was sorry . . . sorry for bringing me into all of this by giving me the journal the way she did."

Lucy looks up and her mouth opens, but she doesn’t say anything. She's not sure if she's more distracted by his lack of shirt or what he's telling her. Both maybe.

He continues. “She said she wished she could have just saved my family, rather than bringing me into this fight. And that she was sorry she couldn’t give me, us, more information about what the future held . . . clue us in about Rufus . . . or about Jessica . . . or so many other things.” He pauses for a moment hoping she will reply. She doesn’t, so he continues. “And you heard the rest about trusting her.”

Flynn looks down at his arm. The bleeding has stopped, but the wound is still oozing a bit. She grabs the gauze from the first aid kit and sees some pain killers. She opens them and hands two to Flynn, who takes them with one swallow, grateful for her thoughtfulness.

She starts working on his arm again, finishes wrapping it, helps him into a clean shirt, partially against her own will, and starts to clean up. Suddenly, she stops, sitting back down on the couch next to him.

“It’s just all so much to take in, you know,” she’s looking down now, staring at the leftover gauze in her hands. "I mean, if I am responsible for dragging you into all this, then I’m sorry too. But god Flynn, why would I do that? And in such an uninformed way? I hated you when I first met you. You were the enemy. Wyatt would have killed you if he had the chance.” She’s looking him the eye now.

“Wyatt would probably try to kill me now if you let him," he says with a smirk. She doesn’t laugh. "I did terrible things back then,” he continues, turning serious, looking away from her toward the wall, remembering his past with regret and shame.

“But couldn’t she have spared us all that? If she can travel back to that time, she could have told us, stopped us, warned us, something, anything,” she exclaims.

Flynn interrupts. “She said that we had to go through all of that. It couldn’t be helped. She still sticks by her decision. And she said that we will . . .”

“Understand someday,” Lucy finishes his sentence, mockingly. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. I’m so tired of that bullshit line. I’ve heard it from Rittenhouse, from her, I’m so sick of everyone knowing my future except me.”

“You heard it from me too,” he says softly, “when I had your journal and you didn't know me, I said that to you too." He feels so ashamed. "Lucy, I’m sorry. I think I understand some of how you feel now, how you must have felt back then. Like a pawn in some chess game that you didn’t even know you were playing in. Or being played in. I'm sorry.”

"I don't blame you, Flynn. I don't. How far back into our pasts have things been manipulated though? We don't even know how long this chess game has been going on. "I mean, the way my mom tells it, I’m Rittenhouse and I have some ridiculous destiny to rule their royal kingdom, or whatever. I’ve had a fiancé just appear. My sister is gone. Apparently, I’m the one that made you steal the Mothership and try to cut the head off the snake. And that’s only the stuff we know about.”

“You didn’t _make_ me Lucy,” he insists, but she continues on.

“And who has done all the manipulating? Is it all Rittenhouse? Is it me? God, Flynn, I don’t even know if I’m a good guy or a bad guy anymore.” She cups her face in her hands as a few tears escape her eyes.

Flynn moves closer to her and puts his hand on her arm. “You’re one of the good guys, Lucy. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind about that. There shouldn’t be in yours either.”

“How can you say that, Flynn, after what she, I mean I, I mean future me, just told you about me dragging you into all this. What if I could have saved your family? What if it could’ve been different for you?”

“No, Lucy. Stop! We can speculate all day long about _what ifs_ and _should have beens_ , fret about the past, worry about the future. We have to accept that we both have things that we are sorry for. But the only thing we can really change is what we do right now, in our present. And we have to do it with the information we have right now. You’re not bad now Lucy. I can’t believe you’ll ever be. But you probably never thought I’d be a good guy, or at least trying to become one, so I get it. The thing is, I trust you, I know you. You’re good. You helped me, in my darkest hour, to see that there was another way to fight this battle. That killing people and destroying our democracy wasn’t the answer. That if we work together, and with your genius and cleverness leading us, we can destroy Rittenhouse. I trust you, Lucy. And that means that I trust this you and future you.”

Lucy looks up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. She can see he has already forgiven her. God, who is this man Garcia Flynn, who came into her life and turned it upside-down, only to become the one person that she can count on, the one person who knows what she has been through, what she's going through.

Flynn takes her hand, “Lucy, we've been through a lot together. We can relate to one other on a deeper level because of it. You’re strong, and brilliant, and the glue that is holding this team together. We can do this Lucy. Let’s fight this together dammit. Fight and end Rittenhouse once and for all. And who better to trust in this fight than yourself?”

Lucy wipes the few tears from her face and looks into his eyes. His sincerity and the truth of his words are clear. He’s not wrong, she thinks. All we really have is right now, the truth we know today, and each other. And she _is_ really tired of crying. She thinks she’s very close to being ready to stand up and fight. She reminds herself to thank him for this someday.

“Did you and the other Lucy talk about anything else that I should know about?” Lucy asks, deliberately changing the subject.

“I did ask where future Flynn was. I bet he’s dashing and charismatic and her favorite team member,” he smiles.

“You’re delusional,” she says, smiling back. “So where is Flynn number one-hundred-and-crazy?”

She didn’t actually answer, he realizes. “She said I was a needed and valuable member of the team,” he says, trying to keep it light. “Oh and she kissed me.”

Lucy smiles at him incredulously, trying to hide her slight sense of shock. “Ha! She did, huh? I wondered how she got your blood on her arm.”

“You noticed that did, you?” he questions. “Afraid that future you and I start to get too close for comfort?” he asks flirtingly, thinking the pain killers he took might be stronger than he realized and are starting to effect his judgement.

She looks up, catching his eyes and shifting on the couch. “Maybe I am,” she replies, leaning a little closer to him. Flynn's jaw drops. His heart is racing now, he could kiss her if he just leaned in a little. Could he possibly get two Lucy kisses in one day. There's only one Lucy he is interested in kissing, and she's right here in front of him.

Lucy leans in even closer, moving her mouth towards his ear and whispers softly and seductively, “but then again, we’ve already established that you’re delusional.”

With that, she stands up, hands him the rest of the gauze, and makes her way toward the side door to her room. She's tired and while she could probably flirt with this man all night, more than that actually, she needs sleep.

She glances over her shoulder and catches his eye, “Goodnight Flynn. Get some sleep. After all, you have two Lucy Preston's to deal with tomorrow.” With that she closes the door. He notices she doesn’t lock it.


	3. Chinatown Redux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they save Rufus. Oh yeah, and Lucy kisses Flynn. There's that too.

Lucy wakes up the next morning surprised she actually slept. After the events of yesterday, she never thought she’d get any sleep. The first thing to cross her mind though is Flynn. What is she going to do about that man? She knows that she’s growing closer to him but she doesn’t really know what to do about it. She can’t go through all of this again, falling for some guy that is trying to bring back his dead wife. Been there, done that.

But she also can’t deny how she feels about him. Each day they get closer. They’re to the point where they are actually flirting with each other, she thinks. He was flirting, wasn’t he? She was so damn tired last night, maybe she just imagined it.

He has really been great lately. He’s been there for her more times than she can count, more than anyone else has lately, or ever. She never expected that.

Her mind wanders to last night. God, he looked good sitting there without a shirt. And his skin was so nice to touch. She wonders what it would be like to touch his strong warm arms, to be held by him, to rest her head up against his broad chest.

She starts to feel a warmness grow inside her . . . mmm. What must it be like to kiss him, those hard straight lips on hers . . . mmm . . . she’s lost in her thoughts now . . . to see what the rest of him looks like without clothes . . . to make love to him . . .

There’s a sudden knock at her door and she startles. “Let’s go Lucy,” says Jiya, “time to get going.” Shit. She’s just totally turned herself on fantasizing about Garcia Flynn.

What is she going to do about this man who rocks her to her very core? She puts her head in her hand, shaking it from side to side as if she's a lost cause, then rolls over and gets out of bed.

\-----

Flynn wakes up the next morning groggy, hung over from the pain meds he took last night. They were stronger than he thought. He remembers flirting with Lucy, and he thinks he remembers her flirting back. Did he imagine that?

He did get some sleep. He probably slept well from the meds, but he also wonders if it was because Lucy was near. He always sleeps better when she's around.

He actually moved his bed last night, in his doped up stupor, up against the wall he shares with her. He imagines her bed just on the other side of that wall and finds it somehow strangely comforting knowing she is there.

God, he can’t stop thinking about her. The truth is he’s falling for her, but he can’t. He just can’t. He can’t do that to her right now, put pressure on her to get involved with him or anyone. She’s been through so much already and she doesn’t need this. He's going to have to get a grip on himself. Be there for her, be what she needs.

He hears Jiya outside the door calling to Lucy to get up. I guess that’s our reveille call, he thinks. He gets up feeling glad he’ll get to see Lucy soon. Fuck, this is going to be harder than he thought.

\-----

“Alright people listen up,” says Denise, “the four of you, Lucy, Wyatt, Flynn and Jiya are headed back to Chinatown. Future Lucy, you take it from here.”

“Just call me Lu to make things easier. He can be Wy,” she says, pointing to Future Wyatt. “To remind you, in order to get back to the previous timeline we have to jump through the opening that was created the first time we jumped there. These openings, these holes, connect the parallel timelines. If we jump through them, we won't create another timeline, we'll actually travel back to the previous one. We have the coordinates and trajectory of the Chinatown opening plugged into the lifeboat already. We have to land at the same time and leave at the same time as before.”

Wy continues, “remember, your other selves will be there too, as will Emma and her goons. Whatever you do, don’t be seen by them. If Emma sees you, she’ll know that you can travel to your own timeline. Right now we don’t think Rittenhouse knows and we want to keep it that way. And if your other self sees you, well you’ll have a lot of explaining to do, so just stay hidden.”

“Can’t I just kill Emma when I see her?” Flynn says petulantly.

“No,” Wy says, "Rittenhouse will figure it out. In this timeline, they’ll know that history changed. We can’t let Rittenhouse find out we can jump to our own timeline. That will fuck up our whole plan. Stay hidden!”

“Go in, intervene the way we’ve told you, change things subtly from the sidelines, work together, and keep out of sight. That’s how this works,” adds Lu. “And come back with Rufus. Got it?” They all nod.

“There are clothes for each of you in Room 1C, first floor, across from the lifeboats,” Denise says. “Go get dressed and get going. And good luck.”

\-----

Dressed and ready to go, the team climbs into the lifeboat. “Nice spurs,” Flynn says to Wyatt. “You too man,” answers Wyatt, “I guess they wanted us to look like we are low life white folks just there to gamble, booze and whore.”

“Yeah, well at least you don’t have to do this in a skirt dressed as bar wenches,” says Jiya, looking over at Lucy who is dressed in a dark blue, off the shoulder gown with fringe sleeves. “I really thought I’d never have to see these clothes again, ugh.”

The lifeboat revs up, gears whirling in opposing concentric circles, until whoosh, it’s gone. “This better work,” says Denise to Lu and Wy. “I don’t want to lose anymore team members.”

\-----

They step off the lifeboat a few meters away from where the other lifeboat has landed, hidden in a nearby tree line. “Look, I can see the 25’s,” says Jiya, peeking around a tree.

“What?” asks Wyatt questioningly.

“You know, Lucy #25 and the rest of you. I don’t really know what else to call them.” Wyatt smiles "that works for me."

“Alright,” says Lucy, “we’re just supposed to follow them and make sure everything unfolds like it did before. We do that until just before Rufus gets shot, which we’ll stop.”

She looks around at Wyatt, Jiya and Flynn. “I need to know I can trust you all on this mission. We need to follow the plan. Got it? No deviations. Rittenhouse cannot see us. Jessica can’t see you Wyatt, my Mom can’t see me, Rufus cannot see any of us until it’s time. I mean it. Can I trust you on this mission?” They all nod. “Good. Alright, let’s do it.”

They arrive at the photography shop right as Emma, Jessica, Carol and Nicholas are entering. They can hear loud banging and shouting, no doubt Emma threatening the photographer to find out the whereabouts of Jiya25. “I’ll be right back,” Flynn says. “I’m going to make sure there aren’t any Rittenhouse goons around here. And for god's sake, break up. You guys stand out like a sore thumb.”

They all break up as Flynn turns the corner and heads around the back of the photography shop. He’s just in time. He can see himself and the other 25’s walking down the street. They’ll be in the shop soon so he'd better act quickly.

From the back alley he can see into the store through the slats in the wooden wall. He sees Emma and the others duck behind the curtain, awaiting the 25’s arrival with guns in hand.

Now’s his chance. He opens the back door of the shop so he's heard and does his best impression of a small child, hoping it will sound as if he is looking for his friend, the young girl, Fei. Emma and Carol look at each other. “I’ll take care of it,” Carol says, spinning on her heels to turn the child away. Emma nods.

Carol exits the back door and suddenly, from behind, Flynn whacks her on the back of the head and knocks her out cold. Lucy’s going to be pissed, but he doesn’t care. He’s not done yet and has other things to worry about right now.

He hides Carol behind some wooden crates in the alley, making sure she won’t be found. She’ll be out for a few hours at least. Then he quietly enters the back door of the photography shop again. He has to create a diversion to let the 25’s know Emma is there.

He sees a large piece of photography equipment in the corner of the room. In an instant, he rushes and knocks it over in the direction of Emma and the others. The equipment comes crashing down with a loud thud, and everyone scatters. That should do it. God, he hopes so. If not, he’s in deep shit.

He backs out the back door, keeping Emma in his sights through the cracks in the wooden wall in case she goes after Lucy25, but she doesn’t. The 25's heard the crash and have ducked for cover before Emma started shooting.

Hiding behind a nearby fence in the alley, Flynn sees Emma, Nicholas, and Jessica flee, Flynn25 and Wyatt25 right on their heels. He did it. Holy shit, it actually worked! He just saved Carol Preston’s life. For better or worse, this is Lucy’s mom. He had to do it, for her.

He stands up to turn and go, taking one last look down the alley to where he left an unconscious Carol. She seems to still be well hidden, so he turns around to go. And there, standing in front of him, with a seriously pissed off look on her face, is Lucy, his Lucy. Shit. He’s been caught.

“What the hell are you doing, Flynn?” Lucy demands. “I asked you not 20 minutes ago if you were good to follow the plan, and you agreed. And in 20 minutes you’ve managed to completely change the course of history for my mother, and for god knows what else. Are you insane? What if they saw you? What if they killed one of the 25’s?”

“But they didn’t,” Flynn says. “I got Carol out of there so she couldn’t be shot. And I knocked over a bunch of equipment so that the 25’s would know someone was behind the curtain. Nobody saw me. It worked. And now everything is back on track the way it was. Me #25 is chasing Emma and Wyatt #25 is chasing Jessica. Everything’s fine.”

“No Flynn, everything is not fine. Carol and Nicholas died in this timeline, and now they’re alive. They’re alive again, to chase us through time, to ruin our lives. Goddammit Flynn, why didn’t you just tell me you were planning to do this?”

“Lucy, she’s your mother. I know she’s done terrible things, but she didn’t deserve to die this way, with Emma betraying her in 1800’s Chinatown, shooting her in cold blood. More importantly, she still owes you answers. Now we can find a way to get them. I did this for you Lucy. Whatever she’s done, she's still your mother.”

Lucy’s eyes soften a bit toward him. She can’t deny that she didn’t want her mother to die, and die in that way. She can’t deny that she wants answers. In his own, warped way, he was trying to do the right thing, trying to do what he thought she wanted, or needed. “Why didn’t you just tell me Flynn? I need to know that I can trust you. You said you’d stick to the plan.”

“Technically, I never agreed to that. I agreed that you can trust me on this mission, and you can. Anything I do, Lucy, will be to protect you. Always.”

She’s irritated at his use of the technicality of her words when he agreed he could be trusted, but is taken aback by his admission that it was all for her. “For me?” she says softly. “Why Flynn?” She remembers the conversation they, Flynn and Lucy #25, are supposed to be having right now just a few meters away in the photography shop. “Why are you here, Flynn?” she utters, looking directly into his eyes.

Flynn takes her by the arm and leads her further down the alley, pulling her into a boarded up shop he spots. He doesn’t want to have this conversation with her outside with Rittenhouse goons all over the place.

He turns to her once he knows they're safe and looks her in the eye. He starts to say something, but closes his mouth and looks down at his hands. God he’s at a loss. He doesn’t want to hurt her, doesn’t want to pressure her, but he can’t lie to her either. She deserves to know the truth.

He looks up again, takes a few steps toward her and raises his hand to her cheek. Brushing his fingers gently down the side of her face he says pleadingly “don’t you know, Lucy? Can’t you see? I’m here for you.” He steps closer and places a tender kiss on her forehead, his hand now cupping her cheek. He can feel her trembling. “I’ve always been here for you,” he whispers.

Just then, they hear loud footsteps outside the door and catch a glimpse of Wyatt running back toward the photography shop. “He’s looking for us,” she says quietly. “We have to go.”

A few moments later, Flynn pulls Wyatt into the alley as he runs by them again. “There you guys are. Where have you been?” says Wyatt. "Everyone is at the saloon, Jiya and I have been there waiting for Rufus and the team to show up. We all need to get over there."

Wyatt doesn’t say anything about Nicholas or Carol. Did he not see? “What?” he says. Are you guys okay? You look, um. . .”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” says Lucy. “Let’s go.”

They head to the saloon and meet up with Jiya. “Where’s Flynn,” Jiya says. “I’m right here,” he says, running up behind them, breathy like he'd just been running to catch up. Lucy looks at him questioningly. “I just had to check on something. Everything’s good.” Lucy gives him a suspicious look, ignores it, then turns to Jiya, “what’s the status?”

“The 25’s are all inside. I saw Rufus. It took everything I had to not run to him. We have to save him.”

“We will,” Lucy says. “Emma’s not here yet. Did you guys set up the trap?”

“Yep, it’s all ready to go,” answers Wyatt.

“Okay, this is it. This is our chance to save Rufus and bring him home. Everybody knows what they need to do.” She looks at Flynn, “so let’s do it.”

Wyatt and Jiya take post in an alleyway on the south side of the saloon, while Lucy and Flynn move to position in a barn on the north side where Emma will be when she shoots at the 25’s.

They climb the ladder in the barn to the hay storage area on the second story and move to the dormer, which is already slightly open. They have a good view of the front of the saloon, so if they fuck this up, they’ll know it straight away. They can’t fuck this up. They can’t.

Just then, they see Emma and her team coming their way. Neither Carol nor Nicholas are with them. Lucy wonders where they are. Maybe they’re dead? Shot by Emma anyway despite Flynn’s well-intentioned but stupid attempt to save her mother. Well, mostly stupid. She has to admit a part of her is glad that he did it.

Emma is inside and they hear gunshots. This is it. They have to be ready. She looks over to Flynn, who is already looking at her with his just-tell-me-when face. They nod at each other just as they see Emma and Jessica run out of the saloon towards the barn.

Jessica keeps going, but Emma stops and turns toward the saloon, her back against the barn just below and to the left of their elevated position. She’s going to ambush the 25’s when they come out, just like she did before.

They hear one last gunshot from inside the saloon, and a few moments later, the door opens. Lucy sees Rufus for the first time as he steps onto the porch. God, she’s missed him. This better work.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Emma raise her gun and point it at the 25’s, at Rufus, and Lucy mouths to Flynn, “now!”

On cue, Flynn grabs the release handle to the rope pulley just above Emma and drops a 25-pound bag of rice that was hanging from the pulley on her head.

Emma falls to the ground, dazed but still functioning. She managed to get one shot off before she fell, and Lucy is eagerly looking out the window to see if it hit anyone.

“Get down,” Flynn hisses, as he rushes over, pulling Lucy from the barn window, falling on top of her.

Emma gets up and looks up suspiciously at the barn, then the pulley, then the broken sack of rice, which is spread all around her on the ground. The rope is broken, frayed and it looks like it must have been an accident (way to go Wyatt!). Lucky bastards, she thinks. Shots fire in her direction and she turns and runs away from the saloon and the barn.

Flynn looks down at Lucy, who is staring up at him in surprise. His body is on top of hers, and he can feel her warmth under him. Her hair smells like strawberries, Amy’s shampoo he thinks, to help her remember. And he can feel her warm breath on his chin.

“Sorry, here let me help you up,” he says. He moves to his knees, gets up, then offers her a hand.

“Thank you,” she says gratefully, realizing Emma could’ve seen her in the window if he hadn’t tackled her. “Wait, Rufus?” she utters.

They both move to the window and look out. Oh no, they can see Rufus on the ground and Jiya and Wyatt #25 standing over him. Shit. Were we too late?

Just then, they see Lucy25 take off after Emma, Flynn following. “We were too late,” says Lucy. She leans her head into Flynn’s chest, too stunned to believe they failed. He puts his arm around her and pulls her close, placing a his mouth  on her head. Fuck, they were too late. _He_ was too late.

He glances over at the saloon. He expects to see Rufus dead and Jiya over him trying futilely to revive him, but that’s not what he sees. Much to Flynn’s surprise, he sees Wyatt and Jiya #25 helping Rufus up to his feet.

“Wait, look,” he says to Lucy. “He’s standing up, Rufus is up.” Lucy pulls her head up and looks at Flynn disbelieving, then looks over to the saloon. Rufus is standing, he’s wobbly, and bleeding from his arm, but he’s up and they’re taking him back toward the lifeboat. “It looks like he was hit, but it wasn’t fatal,” says Flynn, looking down at Lucy.

“Oh my god,” says Lucy smiling. “We did it. We did it!” She grabs Flynn around his neck and pulls him in for a hug. “We did it, Flynn,” she whispers into his ear. “Rufus isn't dead.”

Flynn is the first to pull away, but he keeps his head on hers. “We have to go, Lucy. We need to follow ourselves and make sure we end this right. We still have work to do.”

He helps her up and they run after their 25 selves, so glad to know that Rufus is alive.

\-----

Flynn and Lucy sneak into the corridor where they know they will find Emma kicking Lucy’s ass any minute now. They have to be careful. Emma will come through this corridor on her way out and they can’t be seen.

“We made it in time,” says Flynn. I can stop her before she hurts you.

“No,” says Lucy. “Let it happen.” Flynn looks at her questioningly, eyes wide. "She can't see you Flynn. You can't go over there."

She continues, “the truth is, we’re defined by the good things _and_ the bad things that happen to us. Emma beating me to my core, well I may not want that in my past, but it’s made me stronger, made me willing to fight, to come here and save Rufus. It was painful and ugly, but having this in my past has made me more determined than ever. Let it happen.”

Flynn looks at her confused at first, but then with understanding. It’s true. The things in our past, bad and good, do shape us. But how can he stand by and let Emma hurt her?

He can’t. He won’t. Flynn starts down the hall where he can hear Emma25 and Lucy25 already talking, but Lucy grabs him by the arm to stop him.

“Flynn,” she says gently, looking up at him, deep into his eyes. “It’s okay, really, I’ll survive. We know how this ends. But you have to let it happen.”

He looks at her soberly. She means it. He doesn’t want her to get hurt, but how can he go against her when she's looking at him like that? He can’t. He remains still, listening horrified to the happenings in the next room.

“What do you do to someone who has taken everyone you love?” screams Lucy25. “My sister, Rufus.”

Flynn can hear the pain in her voice, and her sobs, his heart is ripping apart. Lucy grabs his arm to steady him. He hears the hammer of the gun click back. He hears Emma say “Lucy, please,” as if to beg for mercy somehow, after all she’s done. But Lucy pulls the trigger. There are no bullets left.

Flynn turns to face Lucy. Lucy is looking down, ashamed of what he just heard. “I would have killed her you know,” says Lucy. “If there were any bullets left, I would have killed her.”

“But you didn’t,” whispers Flynn, moving closer, trying to get her to look him in the eye. “You didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. I meant to. I did. I killed her . . . at least in my mind.” There is a long pause, and she looks off into the distance. “She took everything from me and I wanted her to pay. I’m a monster, Flynn. A monster.” Lucy buries her head in her hands and tears begin to fall from her eyes.

“No, Lucy. No. You’re not a monster," he says, rushing over to her, putting his arm around her. "You just lost your way, that’s all. You lost your way like I did when I lost my family. The pain and grief made you lose sight of who you are for one moment. You thought Rufus was dead, that Emma killed him, and your mother. And you miss Amy. You’re not a monster. You’re a broken person.”

She turns, looking up at him now. “But she didn’t kill Rufus. Not this time,” she whispers through her tears. "We saved him.”

“Yes, we did,” he smiles.

“But she erased Amy. I miss her so much, Flynn. And I hate Emma for it. I hate her!”

“I know. Believe me, I understand. I understand that hate and that pain. We're going to fight it. And we’re going to get Amy back.”

He takes his arm from around her, reaches into his pocket and pulls out Lucy’s long gold locket. “Where? Where did you get that?” Lucy asks, wiping the tears from her eyes, reaching for the locket.

You gave it to Fei to pay for the damages to her father’s photography shop, and I bought it back from her before we got to the saloon. It belongs to you, Lucy, for your pictures of Amy and of you. We’re going to get her back.”

Lucy looks up at his soft, sincere eyes, moved by his kindness. He saved her mother, he got her locket back, he is there for her. And she believes him. For the first time in a long time she believes that they might have a chance of getting Amy back. With him at her side, she feels not so broken, like maybe she can be put back together again somehow, with his help.

She reaches out and strokes the side of his face gently, a soft smile on her lips. Slowly she runs her fingers through his hair. Carefully, she takes a handful, moves up on her tiptoes and pulls him to her lips. The kiss is soft and tender and deliberate. This man, Garcia Flynn, feels like her anchor in a violent storm. She raises her other hand and places it in his hair, pulling him in even closer.

Flynn is momentarily paralyzed by the fact that Lucy Preston is kissing him, but he comes back, pulling her closer into the kiss. They are kissing passionately now, deep, strong tongue thrusts between them.

She can feel a warmth rising in her belly that only he can muster. Their bodies are soft against each other and he slides his hands down her sides, resting them on her hips. She gasps slightly when he pulls her closer into him, supporting her weight as she bends slightly backwards.

God, his kiss is incredible. She's already forgot everything else as he moves her into a side hallway and up against a nearby wall.

She can feel his full body pressed up against her now, losing himself in her just as she has in him. It's as if the floodgates have been opened and even though this is probably not the time, and definitely not the place, it doesn't matter. She wants him, and he wants her. His tongue probes intensely, exploring every inch of her mouth, covering her lips with his own. He is hard, god, and she is wet.

She pushes Flynn to the opposite wall, pressing her body up against him this time, leaving one hand in his hair to drive his kiss deeper. She moves the other hand to his hips and pulls his torso into hers, feeling his hardness against her aching body again.

He lets out a soft moan, then rolls her around so she is on the wall again, grabs her knee, and in a slow, deliberate move, slides it up his leg to his hip, raising her off the ground and supporting her tiny frame.

His hard bulge presses into her throbbing lady parts and they both let out a quiet, but deep moan at the pleasure of it.

Flynn knows they can't continue. He really, _really_ doesn't want to stop, but if he doesn’t stop now he’s not going to be able to. He slides one arm up to Lucy's shoulders and moves her back gently, keeping his forehead pressed to hers, breathing heavily. “Lucy, I . . . we. . . um,” he stutters.

“I know,” she says breathlessly. “I know.”

They stay there a few moments longer, savoring the feeling of being pressed against and around each other. She slides her leg up a tiny bit, rubbing against his hardness once more, causing him to inhale sharply, then slides herself down to the floor.

Straightening her dress and trying to recover, she says, “Emma should be coming through this way any minute.”

He grabs her waist from behind and pulls her into him and around the corner of the hallway. “Shh,” he says, “I hear her coming.” She stands still with her back pressed against him, her head turned slightly to one side, still feeling his ragged, hot breath against her face. This is not helping her recover. She stays there for a few moments longer, savoring the feeling of him, until Emma runs past them away from Lucy and Flynn #25.

She moves away, even though she really doesn’t want to, and peers around the corner to see Flynn25 rocking and reassuring a broken, sobbing Lucy. Flynn25 is looking at her with such attentive watchfulness, and holds her so tenderly. Lucy realizes that this man deeply, deeply cares for her. Seeing him hold her that way, the look on his face as he tries to soothe her pain, makes her realize just how much. For a brief, passing moment, it scares her. Nobody has ever looked at her that way before.

Flynn’s behind her now, looking at the 25’s over her head. She can feel his presence, towering, strong and safe. “Thank you,” she whispers over her shoulder, “for being there for me.”

“I’m glad I was,” he says softly. “I will always be there for you, if you let me.” She smiles up at him.

“We’d better go,” she says reluctantly. “We have to get to the lifeboat before they jump with Rufus.

He nods silently and takes her hand as they exit in the direction Emma went, careful not to be seen.

\-----

Flynn and Lucy make it back to the 25’s lifeboat before anyone arrives. Wyatt and Jiya are already there. “There you guys are. We’ve been waiting for you. The 25’s should be here any minute,” says Jiya.

“Sorry, we were following ourselves and they just started heading back,” says Lucy. "Is everything still on track?”

“Yes, we’re good to go,” says Wyatt. “Rufus was shot, but it's a superficial wound, we think he’s going to be okay. Once they get here, we all know what we have to do, right?”

“Yes,” they say in unison.

“Great, let’s take our places behind their lifeboat then. It can’t be long now.”

Just then, they see the 25’s come around the trees in the far off distance. Lucy25 and Flynn25 have joined them and they are all about to head home. They approach the old lifeboat, open the door and start to help Rufus in.

Just then, Lucy, Flynn, Wyatt and Jiya jump out from behind the lifeboat and line up behind the #25 versions of themselves. Before anyone can react, they each reach out and grab the 25’s, instantly causing all of the 25’s to freeze in place, then flicker in and out as if they were an old, staticky TV channel, and then vanish before everyone’s eyes.

“Oh my god. OH MY GOD!” says Rufus. “What the hell? Who are you people?”

“It’s us,” says Jiya, looking Rufus in the eye, pulling him into a deep hug. “Rufus, I’m so glad you’re alive.” She’s planting kisses all over his face now, “I missed you so much.”

“What do you mean you missed me? You were just here. Weren’t you?” Rufus sways a little bit, groggy from the amount of blood he’s lost from his wound. He falls backward, resting on the lifeboat, Jiya looking down at him.

“It’s okay, my love,” she says. “I’ll explain everything, I promise,” as Rufus begins to lose consciousness.

“He’s passed out,” Jiya says to the others. “He can survive this gunshot, but only if he gets medical care now. We have to get him home.”

“Okay,” says Lucy, “Jiya, you take Rufus and the rest of the team back with you, then come back for me.”

“No way,” says Flynn, “we’re not leaving you here by yourself.”

“It’s fine. The threat is over. I’ll just wait here until you come back for me.”

“Then I’ll wait with you,” he says determinedly.

They hear a voice over their shoulders, “I think we can help.” Lu and Wy stand in the tree line a few meters away, looking at the team.

“Have you guys been here the whole time spying on us,” says Flynn, looking only slightly shocked at their presence.

“No, not spying,” says Wy, “just watching to make sure everything went according to plan.”

“So you _were_ spying on us,” says Lucy.

“No,” says Lu, casting as stern glance at Wy, “we were here to help if you guys needed it, and you didn’t, until now. Great job. Now let’s go home.”

She walks over to where Jiya is standing over Rufus. He’s coming in and out of consciousness now. “Jiya, you take Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus and head home, right to the exact time we left from, using the same time hole we jumped through before, got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Flynn, you come with Wy and I. We’ll meet you all there. I’ve never jumped with another one of my selves and I’m not really sure what will happen. Let’s not try that today. Jiya, you go first, we’re right behind you.”

Everyone gets into their lifeboats and Jiya heads out first, following the exact coordinates that Lu and Wy plugged in. Lu and the others follow next in the upgraded lifeboat. Everything is going as planned until Wy looks over at Lu and says, “are you ready?” Lu nods.

“Wait,” says Flynn, “what are you doing.”

“We’re going to collapse the timeline,” says Lucy, “if we emit an electromagnetic pulse at just the right time, we can drag the events from 25 into our reality, into 26, and 25 won’t exist anymore.”

“Wait, what?” says Flynn. “Are you sure that’s safe?”

“Yes,” says Lu. “And it’s what we have to do. It’s the only way we can make sure that what just happened in the past becomes a part of our timeline in 26, and not just the future of those who were in 25.”

“It’s almost time,” Wy says to Lu, “get ready . . . wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . now!” he exclaims.

Just then, Lu presses two sets of buttons and the upgraded lifeboat shakes violently, emitting a high pitched sound as it emits a strong electromagnetic burst into the time hole. The time hole begins to collapse, bumping the lifeboat from side to side as it destabilizes all around them.

“Where are the others?” shouts Lu.

“They made it back already,” screams Wy, over the loud sounds of the collapse.

“Are we going to make it back,” yells Flynn.

“Yes, we’ve done this before, don’t worry.” Says Lu. She's manually piloting the lifeboat now, following a computerized trajectory of the collapsing time hole around them and making sure the lifeboat isn't consumed.

“Just a little bit further,” she yells, as the rushing air grows louder, the bumping increasing as the time hole crumples around and into them. Then, all of a sudden, the lifeboat comes to a stop, and all is still and quiet.

“Where are we,” asks Flynn, rubbing his head, which he hit on the metal wall of  the lifeboat during all the commotion.

Wy looks at the computer monitor, “we’re home,” he says, “we made it back to 26, and 25 has collapsed, the holes closed. We did it.”

As they exit the upgraded lifeboat, Flynn sees Lucy across the atrium, Rufus in her arms as she and Jiya walk him to a nearby chair. Flynn sighs. We made it, and we saved Rufus, he thinks to himself.

Lucy glances over at him, catching his eye, and smiles at him beamingly, before heading off with Jiya. He nods silently, glad to see her so happy. Although he’ll never admit it out loud to anyone but her, he's also glad to have Rufus back.


	4. Cups, Straws and the Fabric of Space Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Rufus is home, Denise scolds Flynn, and they figure out what they need to do next. Oh yeah, and Flynn kisses Lucy this time.

“Good news,” Denise announces to the team members who have gathered. They’re in the hotel/home base kitchen area having dinner. “Rufus is going to be just fine. He’s resting now and should be back on his feet in a day or two. Jiya and Lucy are still with him.”

“When can we see him?” asks Connor eagerly.

“I’d hold off until tomorrow,” answers Denise. “He’s pretty wiped out. While he’s recuperating, we all have work to do. Everyone, finish up your dinner and we’ll meet in the library in 30 minutes for a briefing.”

“We have a library?” asks Lucy, who walks into the kitchen as Denise is finishing her sentence.

“Yes,” says Lu, my addition to the base. “Room 1E.”

With that, Wy, Lu, Denise and Mason head to the Library. “Where’s Jiya?” Flynn asks Lucy.

“She’s going to stay with Rufus,” says Lucy. “We set up a place for her to sleep in the infirmary and I told her I’d bring her some food. Smells good, what’s for dinner?”

“Connor’s beef stew. It’s no culinary masterpiece, but it’s better than prison food,” he jokes. Lucy smiles. “I’ll take some to Jiya, you eat,” he offers.

“Great, thanks,” she says. He dishes some stew into two bowls, one for her and one for Jiya, grabs a water and a beer out of the fridge, handing them to her, then grabs a couple more for Jiya. It’s been a hell of a day for her, he thinks, she might just need two beers.

He heads out of the kitchen shooting a wink at Lucy before he leaves. She smiles at him again, shaking her head, then sits down to eat. It doesn’t take her long, she’s famished. When she’s done, she cleans up and heads up to her room.

She still has 20 minutes before the briefing, just enough time to take a quick shower and wash the day off her. Her room actually has a bath tub. God, she would love a long, luxurious bath. One of these days maybe.

She makes quick work of getting herself clean in the shower, but then stops to take a few precious moments to savor the perfectly hot water pulsing over her tired body.

Reluctantly, she turns off the water, steps out, towels off, then pulls on a pair of comfy jeans and her old maroon Stanford sweatshirt. She hasn’t seen these clothes in so long, since the last time she was at her house, a year ago maybe. It’s nice to have some of her favorite clothes back. Thanks Lu, she thinks to herself.

She dries her hair for a few minutes with the dryer, then looks at her watch. 5 more minutes, she’d better head down.

She exits her room and turns the corner. From behind her she hears Flynn, “there you are.” She turns around and he grabs her by the waist, walking backwards and pulling her playfully into her room.

He closes the door behind her and pushes her up against it, leaning down, hands still on her hips, and kisses her softly, slowly, deliberately. “I was hoping I’d catch you before the briefing,” he says tenderly, in almost a whisper.

His hair is a little wet, she guesses he just had a shower as well, and he smells good, like soap and like, well, Flynn. It’s nice.

She moves up on her tiptoes and kisses him again. “Glad to be caught,” she smiles. “Um, we should get downstairs for the meeting, find out what the plan is, don’t you think?” She starts to move away.

“Not yet,” he says pulling her a bit closer, “I’m not done with you.” Flynn smiles, she notices is reaches he eyes. He brushes a strand of hair off of her face and tucks it behind her ear, then becomes more thoughtful. “Lucy,” he pauses, “is this . . . okay? I mean us, is this . . . with us . . . okay?”

“Yes,” she responds raising her eyebrows flirtatiously, “it’s _very_ okay.” She smiles at him, but in an instant, it crosses her mind that his question might be more serious than she realized. Maybe she has actually misjudged the situation. Are things not okay on his end? Shit. She wishes she had thought of this before she answered.

Her face grows more somber. “Is this okay with you?” she probes, eyes wide, searching his for traces of regret, “I mean, if you’re having second thoughts . . . “

He doesn’t let her finish. “I’m _not_ having second thoughts,” he stresses, “not even close.” He kisses her again, once on the lips. “In fact,” he pauses, placing another tender kiss on her cheek, “I very much,” pause, kiss, this time on her ear lobe, “like kissing you,” another pause, another kiss, this one on her neck . . . mmm, this feels good, she thinks . . . _really_ good. He moves back to her lips and kisses her again, breathing into her, “very, very much.”

She moves her hand to the back of his head and pulls him closer to her, all doubts she had a few moments ago gone. She kisses him passionately this time, letting her tongue plunge deep into his mouth. He moans her name softly, “Lucy,” drawing deeper into her kiss and sliding his hands up and down her arched back.

She kisses him for a few more long, pleasurable moments, she could do this all day, all day. But much to her disappointment, they have somewhere to be. She grudgingly pulls away, keeping her arms around his neck, her body pressed against his. “We should probably get downstairs, don’t you think?” she says, “they’ll come looking for us soon if we don’t.”

“Do we have to?” he says. “This is way more fun.”

She laughs, “I agree, but, and don’t take this the wrong way, maybe we should keep this . . . I mean us . . . a secret for the time being.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he says smiling, brushing his forehead across hers. “I’m not ready to share you. And I like the idea of having you all to myself, having our own little secret.” He kisses her gently again, keeping his lips on hers, letting them linger.

He pulls back a bit, looking into her eyes reverentially. God she’s beautiful. He could lose himself in those deep brown eyes. In her. He wants to. Man, does he want to.

He can’t believe this is happening, that she is actually here, in his arms, he’s kissing her, and she’s kissing him back. Whatever he did to deserve this . . . well nothing, he reasons, he’s done nothing to deserve this. If anything, he doesn’t deserve this, deserve her.

He grabs her hands and pulls them up to his lips, kissing them both softly, one after the other. Don’t fuck this up, Flynn, he thinks to himself. Seriously, don’t.

“Shall we?” he says finally, opening the door and gesturing for her to exit first. “Our meeting awaits.” (Stupid meeting).

\-----

“There you two are,” scolds Denise. “You’re late. Wyatt was just briefing us on Chinatown. Sounds like everything went according to plan. Great job getting our team member back.” Denise looks over at Lucy and Flynn, “anything else to report?”

Lucy and Flynn look at each other, wondering which one of them should tell the team about Carol and Nicholas being alive. Should they even say anything? Still looking at Lucy, Flynn opens his mouth and begins, “I . . . ah . . . may have done a few things that changed the timeline a bit. Carol Preston and Nicholas Keynes may still be alive.”

“What?” exclaims Denise. “They were dead? And now they’re alive? I’d say you changed more than a few things if the two leaders from Rittenhouse are still alive, still out there fighting us.”

“It was Lucy’s mother and I wasn’t going to stand by and let her get murdered in cold blood. Again." Flynn retorts. "It’s done. We,” he looks at Lucy for a moment, “I mean I saw them leaving the photography shop, the place they should have died.”

“Wait, were you in on this too, Lucy?” Denise looks at her sharply.

“No, she wasn’t a part of this,” defends Flynn. “She learned after it was already done. She saw Carol and Nicholas leave as I did. We didn’t see them again after that. We have no idea where they are now, if they even made it back to the present.”

“So does this mean that Rittenhouse knows we can travel to our own timeline now?” Denise asks, swinging around looking at Lu and Wy with deep concern on her face.

“Thankfully, no,” Lu says calmly. “When we collapsed the timeline, we brought the events of the parallel timeline, #25, into this timeline, #26. Now the two have converged. Those of us who were back in 25 are the only ones who know what really happened. If Carol and Nicholas are back, anyone in this timeline will think it’s always been that way. They won’t know they were actually supposed to die.”

“Well that’s good,” sighs Denise. “I’ll do some digging and see if they made it back. Flynn, what you did was reckless and stupid and put the entire team in danger. I want to see you in my office after this.”

Flynn nods, looking like he’s about to roll his eyes in an aren’t-I-a-bit-too-old-for-a-lecture manner, but holds it in (for a change).

“So what’s all this about collapsing the timeline,” inquires Wyatt, looking a bit taken aback. “Why didn’t anyone tell us that was part of the plan?”

“We told Denise and Connor,” responds Wy, “but we decided we’d let you guys focus on getting Rufus back, then explain it later.”

“Okay, well, explain it then,” chides Wyatt.

“When you jump to a parallel timeline, using the time holes and tunnels,” says Lu, “you leave your timeline. So if you make any changes in the parallel timeline, they won’t be there when you go back home. That is, unless you fuse the older timeline into your own. It’s the only way to make sure the changes to history follow you back.”

Wy continues. “You do this by erasing yourselves in the previous timeline, which you guys did. This destabilizes that timeline, weakens it. It weakens it so much that if you emit a targeted electromagnetic burst into the key pressure points of the time tunnel, right as you’re jumping back to your own timeline, the two timelines will collide and the older one moves into the newer one, keeping the most recent events. You end up with your own timeline and the new history. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” says Wyatt incredulously. “It sounds like a very big deal to me. Firing what is basically a weapon into the same time tunnel you’re traveling in sounds dangerous as hell. What if it collapses before you make it back?”

Lu and Wy look at each other, then back at the team, “well, then you’d die, or you’d be erased from existence,” says Lu. “But that didn’t happen, that’s never happened.”

“How many times have you done this before, exactly?” asks Lucy.

“A bunch,” says Wy, “it works, we know how to do it, and we’re going to teach you.”

“Teach us?” exclaims Lucy. “Why? Why do we need to know how to do this?”

“Because,” answers Lu, “you guys need to go back and do this for every timeline you’ve ever visited. And you need to do it before Rittenhouse figures out what’s going on and before . . . “Lu cuts off.

“Before what?” says Flynn.

Lu and Wy look back and forth at each other. She didn’t mean to reveal this much. Shit. Wy shrugs his shoulders at her as if to say, why not, go ahead and tell them.

“You were going to say something,” demands Flynn, “before what?”

“Before we destroy space time and all the timelines collapse, are destroyed.” Lucy and Flynn look at Lu with shocked, disbelieving expressions.

She continues, “there are consequences to all these parallel time jumps we’ve been doing, us and Rittenhouse, consequences that don’t just effect history, but also the fabric of space time. Space time is finite and restricted, and each parallel jump fills that space. The way it was explained to me is like a cup with a straw in it. The cup represents space time, the straw is one timeline, the original timeline. Every new timeline adds a straw to the cup, and there is only so much space to go around. Unlike a cup though, space time isn’t solid, it’s fluid, it can burst. We have to prevent that.”

“Are you saying that we’ve created so many parallel timelines with all this time travel that the fabric of space time itself is about to explode into gory chunks,” snarks Flynn.

“Yeah, that’s basically the gist,” says Lu.

“So let me get this straight,” interjects Lucy, “we have to go back to every timeline we’ve ever visited, erase ourselves, then jump back here while we are simultaneously collapsing the time tunnel and trying not to get ourselves killed, oh, and all the while making sure that Rittenhouse doesn’t catch on that we’re doing this? How do we know this is even going to work? How do we know we’re not going to get back to the beginning and just start this nightmare all over again?”

“Because,” says Lu, taking a step forward, “we won’t let that happen.”

“Oh, great,” Flynn and Lucy mutter in unison, rolling their eyes. Lucy continues, “that makes me feel so much better. If this is so important, why don’t you guys just do it?”

“It has to be you,” offers Wy. “It has to be this time team, this timeline that survives. Look, I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I promise, there is no timeline after this one that any of you want to live in. And you’re right Lucy, nobody wants to go back to the beginning just to make all the same mistakes again. That’s why we need you. We have a chance here, a real chance to take down Rittenhouse. For good. Help us do this. Let’s end this once and for all.” Lu nods her head in agreement.

Lucy looks at Wy, reeling from all he just said. His speech was impassioned, heartfelt, and she knows him well enough to know he means what he says. God, do they really have to jump back to every time, relive the past? Back to Salem, to the war, Al Capone, and all the rest of it? She shakes her head, trying to shake away the thoughts of what the past held for all of them. That’s the making of an existential crisis for sure.

But how can they not? She has her own self telling her the future is terrible and that this is the only way. Honestly, Lu and Wy are the only ones with any kind of plan to take down Rittenhouse at all. Without them they’d still be doing the same thing, chasing Rittenhouse and trying to fix whatever mess they were attempting to make of history. At least until they obliterate space time with their ill-informed, physics-defying jumps to parallel timelines.

How is it that none of the geniuses employed by Mason Industries knew about any of this before they invented a goddam time machine and started traipsing all around the fucking cup with their stupid straws?

Just then, an alarm buzzes loudly behind her. She turns around, and can see a red flashing light coming from near the lifeboats in the next room. This can only mean one thing, Rittenhouse has jumped.

“Let me guess,” says Flynn, “September 17, 1787?”

Connor moves over to his computer and then looks up from his screen, “yes, Philadelphia.”

“Do we go after them?” asks Wyatt.

“You can’t,” says Lu, “you need to finish what you’ve started here.” She’s looking directly at Lucy now. “We can’t keep doing the same things and expecting different results. You have a chance here. This will work. Let us finish telling you what you need to know, take the upgraded lifeboat, and go and save our sister, save history.”

Lucy looks around, her eyes moving from Wyatt, to Denise, to Flynn. For the first time, she notices his arm isn’t wounded anymore. That’s right, he wasn’t shot in Chinatown on their second trip, was he?

Flynn looks at her and rubs his arm as if knowing what she’s thinking. They changed history and brought it back with them to their own time, and they saved Rufus. If they could do this once, they could do it again, couldn’t they? Go all the way back home and get Amy, pull her into this timeline, maybe change a little history on the way?

Lucy looks over the Lu and Wy, both of them waiting for her reply with baited breath.

“Okay, tell us what we still need to know,” she says with a determined look in her eye. “Let’s take down Rittenhouse.”

\-----

A few hours later, Flynn finds Lucy still in the library, feverishly writing. “Hey, you busy,” he says, “I can come back later . . . “

“No, come in. I could use a break, and maybe some help,” she says. “How did it go with Agent Christopher?”

“She chewed me a new asshole,” he says unabashedly. “Nothing I probably didn’t deserve, she’s right, I did jeopardize the team,” he trails off.

“And, did you learn your lesson?”

“What are you working on?” he says, changing the subject.

Lucy looks at him searchingly, wondering if she should press for an answer, but decides better against it. “I’m writing down everything I can remember about all of our past missions.”

She holds up her journal, the one she had once given to Flynn, or her future self did. “Lu gave this to me,” she says with a dry chuckle. “Ironic, huh?

She said she filled in as much as she can remember about our first trips, and told me to add the rest. She said I should run it by you and everyone else to make sure we remember as much as we can. What we did, what we changed, where the Rittenhouse agents are so we can avoid them, all that stuff. From there, it’s up to us to go back and change only what we need to.”

“She didn’t tell you what we needed to change? Or how?”

“Nope. She just said she trusted us, and not to blow it. They left, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” he says. We said our good-byes before they took off.”

“Oh yeah, did she, uh, kiss you again,” Lucy asks half-jokingly, half very interested in his answer.

“No,” he counters “And I only have eyes for one Lucy.” His response makes her smile. Good answer.

They spend the next few hours poring over the contents of the journal, it has key info on the next few jumps they will have to make – to see Harriet Tubman, save a Reagan-era Denise, preserve women’s right to vote, and so on.

They write down everything they can remember, soliciting information from Wyatt until he finally gets tired and tells them he’s going to bed and they should too. They’ll have to get Rufus and Jiya’s takes on this in the morning anyway.

Another half hour or so has passed when Flynn looks up and sees Lucy has fallen asleep over her books, her elbow resting on the table, her head in her hand. He thinks he can see her head sliding in slow motion, lower and lower, toward the desk. She’s exhausted. She’s been at this for hours. It’s been a long day. He’s taking her to bed.

Flynn puts down his papers and walks over to the library lamp, turning it off. He bends down over Lucy’s chair, sliding it out slowly as not to startle her, and scoops her up into his arms.

Lucy stirs, “Flynn,” she utters sleepily, looking a little confused. Realizing what he is doing, she rests her head on his shoulder and wraps her fist gently into the front of his shirt, nestling in.

He carries her easily up the stairs, opens her door with his elbow, pushing it in, and carries her over to her bed. He shifts her so he’s holding her with one hand now, and pulls the covers to her bed back, gently laying her on her pillow.

He removes her shoes, tossing them off to the side, then pulls the covers up to her shoulders, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. He turns to leave and hears Lucy stir, “Flynn,” she whispers, “stay.”

Flynn turns back to look at her. She’s still lying down, groggy, barely awake. He nods, a soft smile on his face. He looks over at the nearby couch, thinking he could sleep there. As he turns toward it, Lucy whispers again, “Garcia . . . “

Surprised to hear his name, Flynn turns to see Lucy sitting up, looking at him earnestly, her hand outstretched, beckoning him to come to the bed. She wants me to sleep with her, or lie with her, or sleep near her, he thinks. He doesn’t know. Shit.

He really wasn’t expecting this. He hasn't actually thought any of this out yet, thought about them getting even closer, what that means. It's been so long since he's been close with anyone. Man, he really wishes he had thought through this.

He slowly stretches out his arm, placing his hand in hers, as she gently pulls him toward her, shifting over in the bed to make space for him. He sits down next to her, looking carefully into her eyes to make sure he follows her lead.

She uses her feet to kick his shoes off onto the floor, then pushes him back onto her pillow, places a soft and tender kiss on his cheek, then rests her head on his shoulder, nuzzling closer. Flynn lays there paralyzed, forgetting how to use his hands, his mouth, his brain. He’s stiff as a board, and frankly, slightly panicked. Get a grip man. Get a grip.

“Garcia,” she starts, “is this okay? You seem, um, not very comfortable.”

He takes a long deep breath, letting it out with an audible sigh, then brings his arms around her, pulling her closer to him, turning just a tiny bit toward her so her head can rest on the soft part of his chest. “This is . . . perfect,” he utters.

With that, she nestles into him even closer, sliding her knee up his calves, resting it across his legs, then sighs, “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you stayed.”

“Me too,” he whispers. He can hear her breathing softly and feels the slow rise and fall of her chest next to him. He feels at peace in her arms, safe, calm, something he hasn't felt in so long. He finds himself wishing they could stay here forever, as he drifts off into a deep and restful sleep.


	5. Flynn Tease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where . . . I don't even know what's going on here. 
> 
> The one where the author realizes she really needs to work on her style.
> 
> My hormones are showing. Blame the phone buzzing in his pants for 2 minutes. 
> 
> I'm really bad at this.
> 
> Thanks to all who left kudos and comments. I'm learning. 
> 
> I still love typos.

Sunlight trickles through the window and Lucy wakes up slow and content. She stretches her arms and legs, feeling the soft, cool sheets on her skin.

Flynn, is gone, but his spot is still warm. She wonders if maybe he went to his room. She can’t help but smile.

Rufus is back. She still can’t believe it. And she and Flynn are . . . well, she doesn’t really know what they are, but whatever it is, it’s good.

Her mind wanders to their first kiss. She started it. She’d wanted to for a while, thought about what it would be like. And then she fell into the moment when he gave her back her locket and reached out and kissed him.

Well, more than kissed him, if she’s being honest. Full on made out would be a better description. Got lost in him, those deep dark eyes, that thick brown hair.

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best moment to lose herself, with her being beaten to a pulp by Emma in the next room and all. At least now she has a good memory to go along with the really awful one. One way to rationalize it anyway, she thinks.

He initiated the second one, pulling her into her room, pressing her against the door. She likes that he started that round. Too bad they haven’t been able to finish anything, she thinks dreamily.

Wait, says a little voice in the back of her head, back it up girl! What the hell are you thinking? The voice is escalating, going from zero to rant in all of 3 seconds.

The man is a killer, for crying out loud. And he drives you crazy with his lone wolf routine and his total failure to follow orders, always finding some loophole to rationalize his behavior.

And he’s married, for god sake, with a kid, and he’s made no secret of the fact that he loves his family. Desperately. He’ll do anything to get them back. Fuck. This is the whole Wyatt thing all over again, isn’t it? she thinks.

But he’s not Wyatt, says another voice in her head, this one slightly less inclined to irrational negative tirades. He is different. _This_ is different.

Flynn said he could never go back to his family, and he had meant it. And the way he looks at you, you can’t deny he cares deeply for you. No one has ever looked at you that way.

Lucy shakes her head, as if trying to shut them both up. This _is_ different, she thinks. But I need to be careful. I don’t want to end up hurt again. Just take this slow.

Her room door jiggles and Flynn lets himself in, a cup of coffee in each hand. “Hi,” he says, a jovial smile on his face, as he sets the coffee on the nearby table.

Lucy sits up, rolls out of bed, and takes a few steps toward him before she realizes she’s, um, not wearing any pants. Her sweatshirt is missing too. She gasps and grabs for the nearest pillow, covering up her exposed maroon lace panties and bared midriff.

She looks over at Flynn. He is staring at her with an amused smile on his lips. Thank god she still has on the tank top she arbitrarily threw on under her sweatshirt yesterday. It’s short, white, and somewhat see-through, but at least it’s covering her up some.

”Please tell me I didn’t take off my pants and sweatshirt in the middle of the night last night while I was half-asleep.”

“You didn’t,” he says, his face serious now. “You took off your pants, shirt, and bra.” Flynn bends over, picks up her matching bra off the floor and shows it to her, mockingly.

“Give me that,” she demands, trying to be serious, a slightly embarrassed smile on her face. Flynn throws it to her.

“Imagine my surprise,” he continues, “when I was awoken from a deep slumber to you tossing, turning and mumbling something about itchy tags, and then you start to take your clothes off, one by one.” His smile is beaming now.

“You could’ve woken me up you know,” she retorts, scrunching the bra into a ball and throwing it directly at his head. He manages to duck and catch it just as it passes his face, letting out a chuckle.

“Amy used to make fun of me for doing that too. I’ve done it since I was a kid. When it gets too hot my clothes bother me and I can’t sleep, so that’s what I do,” she offers, justifying her behavior. That should wipe that smirk off his face. It doesn't.

“So what you’re saying, Lucy,” he says slowly and smooth as silk, taking one calculated step closer to her, “is that I make you _hot_?” He raises one eyebrow and looks at her seductively, touching his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

“Get out, Flynn,” she says assertively, pointing at the door to his room, trying to assert herself but also trying to hide that fact that those eyes, that voice, and that damn tongue are making her totally unhinged.

His eyes and smile are both beaming now, and he lets out a loud, playful laugh. “Alright, alright, I’ll go. But first,” he walks toward her slowly, looking her in the eye, a devilish smile on his face. Lucy freezes.

“First.” He puts his hands on her arms, pulling her and the pillow into him. She’s pretty sure she’s holding her breath, and has forgotten how to breathe in general.

“A kiss.” He leans down and very, _very_ slowly places a soft, sensual kiss below her earlobe. “Good morning,” he whispers.

She stands there, stiff as a board. She feels light headed and is tingling all over. She is so ready to throw this hot sexy man on her bed right now and have her way with him.

But no way. He is not going to stand by silently during one of her semiconscious nighttime get-overheated-and-strip episodes and be rewarded for not snapping her out of it.

How far was he going to let it go exactly? He’s just lucky she didn’t totally strip down naked. Or maybe she’s lucky. She’ll think about that later. This is a matter of principle and he should have woken her up.

She takes a deep, unsteady breath. “Good morning,” she says matter of factly trying to hold her ground.

He slowly takes one step back, not quite the reaction he was hoping for, then glances down at her makeshift pillow shield with a raised eyebrow. It has inadvertently started to slide out of her hand and down her leg, giving him full view of her mostly bare midsection and practically worthless top.

She lays siege to the pillow vehemently, pulling it back up to cover her whole torso, this pillow isn’t going anywhere dammit. And damn this man. And that kiss. With a determined look, she shakes her head once in the direction of the door, making it clear that it’s time for him to go.

He continues to back up toward the door, still looking at her as if he might be thinking about devouring her, as if he is just waiting for the signal from her that she’d like that too.

Part of her wishes he would devour her, but no way she’s going to let him know that now. She remains steadfast, motioning toward the door once more with her eyes.

Clearly not able to bend her to his will, he smiles half playfully, half defeatedly, grabs his coffee, and then walks the rest of the way to the door. He glances over his shoulder just before he exits and says “thank you for last night, Lucy, I really enjoyed the company.” With that, he closes the door.

Lucy, breathes out a long sigh as she steadies herself on the bed. Damn, she’s going to need a cold shower. So much for taking it slow.


	6. Cold Showers before Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Flynn gets a cold shower, they head back to the Civil War, but this time they have Rittenhouse in their sites.
> 
> I know enough history to be dangerous.
> 
> I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever sleep again and not stay up at night thinking about this story. Okay, Flynn. Thinking about Flynn.

This cold shower is exactly what Flynn needs, he thinks, as he stands there letting the water run over his head. If Lucy had given him the signal just now, he’s not sure he would’ve been able to hold back, or would've wanted to.

Seeing her standing there in her panties was not at all good for his attempts at self-control. Those long beautiful legs, her slender curved figure, her warm inviting skin, man he wants her, wants to make love to her.

Sure, last night he might have panicked a little when Lucy invited him into her bed to sleep. Well not panicked. Garcia Flynn does not panic. He prides himself on being cool, calculated, deliberate.

He simply experienced a momentary lapse in clarity as to what comes next with this impressive woman he has clearly fallen for. Especially since it’s been such a long time. A very long time. But that moment has passed and it’s clear what he wants. He wants her. Any way she’ll have him. He’s all in.

It’s hard to know when this happened exactly. It’s been building gradually. Sure, he noticed how beautiful she was when he first met her, and then again at the Hindenburg. But he was taken aback when she didn’t know him and was actually working against him. The perils of time travel, he supposes.

He was surprised by her courage when she went for his gun in 1865. Really surprised. And was in awe when she came after him to 1944 Nazi Germany. She’s got some serious nerve.

But that time she played him and set him up against Rittenhouse in 1972 as she escaped with the Doc and rescued Wyatt, now that took some serious guts. And if he’s being honest, it was utter genius. He had to respect her enterprise, her intelligence, her calculated tactics.

Watching her in action though when they worked together to go after Benedict Arnold, or when she turned Houdini on him, now that was exquisite. She’s bold, clever, fast on her feet, and can fit into any place in history with measured capitulation. He’s head over heels for this fierce little historian, no use fighting it anymore.

Sure, he’ll play it cool, be whatever she needs, be the same ol’ Flynn in front of the team. Calm, cool, collected, those are his middle names. But as far as he’s concerned, it’s a done deal. He’s fallen madly in love with Lucy Preston.

I’ve got this, he thinks to himself as he turns the shower off, steps out, grabs a towel and dries off. I’ve definitely got this.

\------

“Rufus! It’s so good to see you up and about,” says Lucy, coming into the kitchen and giving him a big, but gentle, hug. The rest of the team is already there eating breakfast. She grabs a cup of coffee and Flynn offers her some cereal, which she takes.

“It’s good to be back,” he says. “Jiya told me what happened. Thank you all for coming back for me.”

“You should thank Lu and Wy, they were the ones who told us how to do it,” says Wyatt.

“Yeah, I talked to them before they left,” responds Rufus. “Can I just say that Lucy Lara Croft is a total badass.”

“Yeah, what about me?” asks Wyatt.

“Yeah, you looked more like a cross between a homeless hipster and a lumberjack.” Everyone except Wyatt laughs. It’s so good to have him back. “Don’t worry though man, we can fix that, help you make better life choices,” Rufus adds.

“Sorry to interrupt the reunion guys, but speaking of life choices,” interjects Denise, “we need to get going on our next mission. Rufus, when do you think you’ll be ready?”

“The doctor has cleared me to go anytime, I’m just supposed to take it easy, whatever that means.”

“It means no walking into a police line during a riot and getting yourself beaten to a pulp,” says Connor in a concerned father sort of way, “and no getting shot.”

“Don’t worry, I got your back,” adds Flynn, giving Rufus the nod. Rufus nods back.

“Me too,” says Wyatt.

“Me three,” says Lucy, as Rufus looks at her a bit doubtful. “What, I’m going to be Lucy Croft one day. I'll have all three of your backs.”

“Great, well until then, let’s leave it to these two, k” says Rufus.

“Alright, so what’s the plan?” Connor asks, looking to Lucy.

“Well, we thought we could try to fit 3-4 trips to our past each day. It will be grueling but time is of the essence. Rittenhouse could find out about these time tunnels at any moment, and that would make our job a million times harder,” she says.

“Won’t they know that something's up because we didn’t follow them to 1787?” asks Wyatt.

“No, actually,” says Connor, “at least not right away. The upgraded lifeboat, which Lu and Wy were kind enough to leave behind, has enhanced technology that prevents them from tracking us. Sure, they won’t see us in 1787, but they won’t know we aren’t there. This should buy us some time. We do need to work fast though.”

“We should be able to,” says Jiya. “The upgraded lifeboat has a battery from like 2023, or whatever. It recharges a million times faster. It can convert all types of power to recharge itself too – solar, wind, mechanical friction. It’s totally rad.”

“What about Rittenhouse’s jumps, aren’t they just going to create more parallel timelines that will need to be destroyed?” asks Lucy.

“Yeah, we’re working on understanding that,” says Connor. “If what Lu and Wy said is true, every jump we’ve ever made would have created an alternate timeline. Even the early test jumps. We’ll have to figure out what to do about those. According to Lu and Wy, they don’t really matter and will collapse along with ours once we come back. Thankfully, Future Connor and team were kind enough to send this along.”

Connor holds up a thick stack of papers bound at the edge. “It’s a manual of sorts. We’re about to get a crash course in 2023 temporal, spatial and mechanical physics.”

“I know we have to go through each time we’ve already been through, but this would be so much easier if we could just go back to the original timeline and drag it here,” says Wyatt.

“Yes, well, I’ll be sure to register your complaint with the wider world of physics,” says Rufus sarcastically. “Maybe you can write a sternly worded letter to Einstein about how you think his theories, which are actually reality, basically suck.”

“Yes, well,” continues Connor, “if we want to collapse the time tunnels and restore history, we’ll have to go to one parallel timeline at a time to do so.”

“And don't forget destroy Rittenhouse,” adds Flynn.

“Lucy, did you get any intel from Lu and Wy on exactly how we do that,” asks Denise.

“Well, not in so many words. They left the journal and we need to go through it, the one she, I, gave Flynn. It's not perfect though. Apparently, we’re supposed to add things we remember. We started going through it last night and there’s some good information in there. We’re mapping it out.”

“Do we at least know the plan for our next few missions?” asks Denise incredulously.

“Yes, well mostly,” Lucy looks at Wyatt and Flynn questioningly. They nod. “I mean yes,” she answers decisively.

“Should I be worried,” says Denise.

“No,” says Lucy, shaking her head. “No.”

“Nope, not worried at all,” adds Flynn, a grin on his face.

Denise is not convinced, but trusts her team. “Okay, let’s do it. Remember to use the holes, don’t be seen, we’ll expect you back at approximately this same time. Go get dressed and good luck.”

\-----

Flynn exits the lifeboat in 1863 South Carolina and helps Lucy down, per usual, taking a quick moment to squeeze her hand affectionately before he lets go.

Wyatt and Rufus are already peering around some bushes at the old lifeboat and the 24’s, this timeline's versions of themselves.

“Alright, there we are,” says Rufus. “Do we really know what we’re doing or was that just some hand-wavy bullshit for Agent Christopher?”

“Yes, of course,” answers Lucy. “You and Wyatt are going to follow the 24's and make sure everything goes as planned. Flynn and I are going to go look for John Rittenhouse.”

“Wait, what,” says Rufus. “The only reason Jiya let me even leave was because I assured her we were going to be doing exactly the same thing we did last time.”

“And we are,” offers Wyatt. “You and I will be doing exactly what we did last time. Or rather, watching ourselves do what we did last time. We’re just here to make sure nothing goes wrong. Only _they_ won’t be doing the same thing,” he motions to Lucy and Flynn, " so you didn't lie to Jiya."

“Don’t worry,” reassures Flynn, “we won’t change a thing, just following some leads, gathering some intel. You guys just make sure that plantation raid happens.”

“Why can’t we just go now and stop the ambush on those union soldiers? That wasn’t supposed to happen anyway,” asks Rufus.

“Because, then us in this timeline won’t have anything to do and we need some time to search out our leads,” says Flynn. “Plus we need to kill the sleeper, so he doesn’t exist when we go back. It’ll all be fine. Everything turned out okay in the end. The Union won.”

“Alright, fine,” says Rufus, looking at Flynn warily. "Where are we going to meet up again?”

“We’ll be back by nightfall, before the raid starts,” says Flynn. “We’ll meet you here at the lifeboat when the 24’s come to jump home.”

\-----

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Flynn asks, as they sit in the upgraded lifeboat, Lucy pushing buttons, the machine powering up.

“According to Lu and Wy, yes,” she says, looking skeptical. “The new upgrades come with a self-navigation system. We just use the biometric eye and hand scanners to gain access, punch in the time and location of where we want to go, and the machine does the rest." Lucy shrugs. "And apparently we can jump to a different location in 1863 without disturbing space time.”

“Good for us, but making time travel easier so that any idiot can do it, that’s incredibly foolish.”

“I agree, but here we are. When this is all over, we need to destroy this machine, Mothership included.” Flynn nods in agreement.

In an instant, they’re stepping out of the lifeboat in Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut. “Do you think we’ll find John Rittenhouse here?” asks Flynn.

“I doubt it,” replies Lucy, “he was what, 10, maybe 12, when we met him in 1780 New York? That would make him like 95 right now. People just didn’t live that long in this century. But he was taught to be a clockmaker, and he probably kept doing that after he ran away.

Of the 4 clockmakers that exist now, only one, Heman Clark, has virtually no historical information listed about him. Lu seemed to think we should check him out. She had a side note in the journal that mentioned him and this place.”

They find their way into town, and to the small, quiet main street, made of several wooden buildings and a church with a tall steeple in the center of the square.

Most of the activity is just outside of town, where camps of civil war soldiers are set up to provide support and artillery to the Union soldiers fighting battles further south.

They steal some new clothes, to fit in better, and ask a passerby where they might find the town clockmaker.

They knock on the door to the business entrance of a white wooden house at the end of town and a young man answers the door wearing magnifying specs and a leather apron, holding a mantle mount clock in his hands. “Hi, are you the clockmaker,” asks Flynn.

“Yes, I’m Aaron.” he says.

“Oh my god, your Aaron Thomas,” says Lucy, “son of Seth Thomas, the famous clockmaker.”

“You knew my father?”

“Oh, no,” she says, “his clocks are amazing. Legendary.”

“Yes, well come in. How may I help you?”

Flynn responds, “We are looking to find out more about Heman Clark, we think he used to work here.”

Lucy gives Flynn a stern glance for his usual lack of tact and his if-he-doesn’t-answer-I’ll-just-beat-it-out-of-him approach to life, then adds,

“Yes, Heman was my cousin, on my father’s side, and, well, I’ve lost both my parents now and I’m trying to find my lost relatives.”

“Yes, he worked here. He trained my father, and me some. He had a son named Davidson, but he doesn’t live here anymore. He moved into the city some years ago. New York. I’m sorry, I don’t know more than that.”

“No, thank you, this is so helpful,” replies Lucy. As she responds, she thinks she sees a man peering out from behind a curtain located in the back of the shop, but when she looks harder, he’s gone. Shaking her head, she continues, “thank you for your time, Aaron, and it’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

“Wait please,” he says. “Since you are family to Heman, I’d like to give this to you.” He hands her a small mahogany four-column shelf clock, with painted iron Roman numerals on the dial and a lower section that has a painted tablet depicting a peaceful pond scene.

“He was working on this in the end, and didn’t finish it. I can’t bring myself to do it. I’d like you to have it. Maybe share it with Davidson if you find him.”

Lucy takes the clock. “Really, um, thank you. That’s so kind of you. Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’d like you to have it.”

“Well, thank you. You’re very kind.”

With that, they exchange farewells and head back toward the lifeboat. “Well that was, uh, weird,” says Lucy finally.

“I’ll say,” replies Flynn, as he examines the clock suspiciously for hidden compartments or an incendiary device. “Who was that old man that kept peering through the back curtain? If we had more time, and we didn’t want to do anything to disrupt history, I would’ve yanked him out of there.”

“You saw him too? I thought I might have imagined it. We are definitely on to something here with this Heman guy.”

“Do you think he is, or was, John Rittenhouse?” Flynn asks.

“I don’t know, maybe. I need to do some more research to put the pieces together.”

On the way out of town, they stop by the church office, sharing the story again that they are looking for her long lost cousin, Davidson, and can they see the town birth, death and marriage records. They find records on Davidson, Heman, and a few others, and Lucy snaps a few pictures of the documents with her smart phone when nobody’s looking.

“We need to get back,” says Flynn, “it will be nightfall soon.” Lucy nods.

\-----

They get back to South Carolina just as night begins to fall. The raid should begin soon. They’ll have to be careful not to be seen by themselves, Colonel Montgomery or his men, who should be passing through soon on their way to the plantation.

They take up refuge by a nearby stream, which allows them to get some cool water to drink and still keep the 24’s lifeboat in view.

Flynn sits down and straddles a nearby log, which Lucy is already sitting on, shuffling her skirts. The moonlight shines on her hair and skin, making her look even more beautiful, if that’s possible, and Flynn takes her hand in his.

She looks at him, thinking to herself that this is the first time since this morning they’ve had a chance to stop and just be with each other. She scoots closer to him, tucking her head under his chin as she rests her head on his chest, wrapping her arm around his waist.

They stay that way for a while, her rubbing her thumb back and forth across his chest, him running his hand down her hair and then letting it rest on her head ever so gently.

They don’t know what the future holds, but they know what they have to do, mostly. This thought makes them cling to each other just a little tighter.

Lucy lifts her head, running her finger across his lips now, then presses up and kisses him softly. He kisses her back, not rushing, not with desperate wanting, but with gentle, unhurried, intentional care. He pulls her in and holds her again, close to his chest, close to his heart, until they hear the others approaching in the distance.

Flynn stands up, helping Lucy to her feet, then gives her one last kiss in the moonlight. Holding her hand, he leads her towards the others where they must now erase their other selves, crumple the timeline as they jump home, try not to die, and then do it all over again, and again, and again.


	7. Lucy + Flynn + Bathtub + no smut = Why? Just why??? (it's sweet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What in the damnshitfuck hell was that finale??? For the fans my ass!!! 
> 
> Okay, enough of that. I'm going to finish this story if it kills me. 
> 
> I’m still bad at this, but am pressing on. Playing around with different styles so bear with me.
> 
> I know enough history to be dangerous.

Lucy steps off the lifeboat realizing everything on her body hurts. It’s the kind of allover achiness that comes from deep, saturating, enduring exhaustion, from pushing life to the brink, convincing yourself to go on just a little longer for the cause, just one more trip, one more chapter to read, one more fact to collect, before taking a rest.

Believing the inner dialog that got her to this point was easy, especially since she knows what she’s fighting for, believes in it with all her heart, soul, mind, strength, would do anything to achieve it.

Of course, now she’s reached the point of utter exhaustion, hit a metaphorical wall and is dead on her feet, can’t think straight anymore, is considering never thinking again if you must know, and needs rest. She should really take better care of herself.

Fuck. Everything hurts.

Thank god for Denise and Jiya who took it upon themselves to feed her and send her to her room immediately for a hot bath and some sleep.

The rest of the team could wrestle with the journal and how to take down Rittenhouse for a while. She knew they were so close to figuring it out, but, ugh, the solution keeps evading her. She’s spent anyway, no use thinking about it anymore now.

Lying eyes closed and weary in the hot, soapy water of her old time, club foot bathtub, her mind wanders aimlessly over the last few days of utter insanity, jumping from timeline to timeline, retracing their past steps, removing their old selves from existence, disintegrating the old timelines and dragging their events into the present.

Cagney and Lacey saved Denise (and Reagan) again, while Flynn and Lucy jumped laterally over to DC in that same timeline in an effort to dig into the names of Rittenhouse operatives who were arrested in 2017.

They also checked in on, from afar, her Grandpa, Ethan Cahill. The trip hadn’t been very useful in helping them to understand how to fully bring down Rittenhouse in its worldwide, operate from the shadows, it’s all about family but we’ll kill you if you don’t comply, entirety.

Rittenhouse just seems to keep going, even if you cut the head off the snake like they thought they did with killing David Rittenhouse and again with all the arrests from her Grandpa’s efforts. They’re like herpes, they lie dormant, just waiting, only to resurface at the worst possible time.

The trip to 1919 didn’t hold the answers either. That trip hadn’t been about Rittenhouse research though. They saved Alice Paul. They had to. Losing her in this whole Rittenhouse/time travel/sleeper agent fustercluck was unacceptable, and if Lucy could prevent her death, you better be damn sure she’d do it.

Lucy shifted lower into the warm, soothing water and smiled as she remembered introducing Flynn to Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.

“Ms. McBeal, you’re back,” says Grace. “Where’s Mr. Cochran? And who’s this?” looking up and down Flynn with her keen eye.

“This is my other associate, Harvey Specter,” replied Lucy.

Looking back and forth between Flynn and Lucy, Grace continues, “my, you do have a thing for soldiers, don’t you? Does your other soldier know about this one?”

Looking more closely at Flynn, “He’s married too . . . no . . . widowed. I’ve seen that look in a man’s eyes before. I’m sorry about your family Mr. Specter. Did they ever find your wife’s killer?”

“Thank you,” replied Flynn, looking at Lucy, stunned at Grace’s dizzying intellect. “No, they never found her killer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Grace. “I can tell that you care deeply for Ms. McBeal, the way you carry yourself, the deep intensity with which you look at her when you think she’s not looking. I’m glad you are able to move on and try to find happiness after your loss. That doesn’t always happen.”

Looking at Lucy, Grace continues, “and you, I like this one. He wants to protect you. He’s selfless that way. Yes, he’s dangerous, to be sure. Not to you though. You anchor him. I can tell when you stand closer to him, and when you look at him, he steadies. Yes, this man is in love with you and he knows it, isn’t afraid of it, not like that boy that was in here with you earlier. And I see the way you look at him, no use denying it. You’ll be a lot happier if you just admit it now. Pick this one.”

Lucy chuckles a little thinking back to the look on Flynn’s face. He didn’t know what hit him, not that Lucy did either. Grace was a force to be considered. Was Flynn really in love with her? She shakes the thought from her head. She can’t jump down that rabbit hole right now.

Thankfully, Flynn, with Grace’s help, had been able to get in to guard Alice Paul in her jail cell, so she was never poisoned by the sleeper. After she got out of jail, Alice and Grace went on to work together in the women’s rights movement and even became friends.

The trip back to San Antonio to record Robert Johnson’s album had also been an overall bust as far as ending Rittenhouse was concerned. So, had going back to 1934 when young Kennedy was almost killed.

Flynn, Lucy and Wyatt had researched the Ford’s and the Lindberg’s, both Rittenhouse families, in these two timelines, but still didn’t manage to come up with a way to bring Rittenhouse down for good. Lucy knew there was a way, but how?

As for Jiya, her visions seemed to have slowed for now. Rufus seems to think it's a good thing. Seems like a good thing to her as well. All those visions ever did was create problems, not solve them. No, it's good they are gone.

Rufus and Jiya have since been busy working on a way to try to visualize what Lucy calls the cup/straw thingy, but is more scientifically known as the Tipler Cylinder Time Travel Theory allowing Travel within Closed Timelike Curves. She prefers cup/straw thingy.

From what Lucy understands, a single timeline is cylindrical, and infinite in length, allowing for time travel. The theory doesn’t account for more than one cylinder though (you know, the straws), and most people think there is only one straw.

Thanks to future Lu and Wy though, we know there are many, and each time jump creates a new one. Unlike time cylinder length, the space that holds timelines is not infinite (you know, the cup). You can only fit so many straws into that space before the proverbial shit hits the fan.

She hopes all the jumps they’ve been doing have been actually decreasing the number of straws. Having a way to show this would really help.

Lucy sits up, leans forward, and adds more hot water to the tub, draining some of the now lukewarm water away.

Just a little longer, a little more time to let the heat chip away at her tense muscles, just a few more stolen minutes of doing nothing and then she’ll get out. She hears a quiet knock at the door and sighs, well, so much for that.

“Come in,” she says.

“Hey, just checking to make sure you didn’t fall asleep in here,” says Flynn. “I know how tired you are. 

“I’m awake, mostly, sort of, come in.”

Flynn enters the bathroom, closes the door, and sits down on a small wooden stool near the tub. He looks at Lucy lying there, her body covered with bubbles. She’s bleary eyed and exhausted.

He moves his stool so he’s sitting behind her and reaches in, slowly placing his hands in the water to warm them, then puts them on her shoulders and gently begins massaging the knots that have taken up residence there. “God Lucy, you’re tense.”

“Mmmmm, I know. It’s been a rough few days. That feels amazing,” she replies, eyes closed, taking in the utter relief she feels with each pressing rub.

“It _has_ been a tough few days. Let’s not think about that now. Just close your eyes, relax, and we can think about all that tomorrow.”

Flynn’s hands massage deep into her neck and shoulders, stopping every so often to apply pressure to a pain point and allow the muscle there to release. Lucy can feel the tension leaving her body as he moves from area to area.

Her mind no longer racing, she takes a deep breath and sighs, sinking further into the feeling of him rubbing away the weight of it all.

When he’s done with her neck and shoulders, his hands move down to her arms, and he begins his work anew tackling the pain and stiffness she feels in each muscle there.

His hands are strong, capable, and they work masterfully to relax her even further, until she finds herself on the precipice of sleep, not quite awake, not quite asleep, totally relaxed in the hands of this complicated, crazy, but selfless man capable of immense, deep love.

Flynn continues rubbing her arms, moving lower down to her forearms and hands, and rests his lips on the back of Lucy’s head. “There you go, much better, nice and relaxed,” he whispers. “Let’s get you to bed so you can rest now.”

With that, he stands up slowly. Lucy already misses the feel of his hands on her, but she’s going to be asleep soon and remotely recalls that she should really get out of the tub before she drifts off.

Flynn stands over her with a towel and looks away when she stands. Tonight, is about her, not him, and she needs to sleep. He wraps her in the towel, takes a second towel and dries her off, then chivalrously looks away again as he wraps her in her robe.

Taking her hand, he guides her to her bed, pulls the covers back, lays her down and snuggly bunches the covers around her. She’s asleep before her head hits the pillow and he smiles at her softly, lovingly, completely unveiled before her.

He climbs into the other side of the bed, unwilling to be separated from her, and draws her closer to him, wrapping his arms the full length around her. “I love you, Lucy Preston,” he whispers into her hair. “I love you.”

He knows she doesn't hear him, but he's said it anyway. He means it. There's no half way with him, no turning back now, even if he wanted to.

She's stolen his heart, somehow breathed life into it again, seen him at his worst but still found a way to see the good in him, picking up his broken pieces of soul and willing them back together.

Whatever it takes, he'll be there for her, be what she needs, in any way she will allow. She's the only thing he couldn't hate after losing his family, and oh did he try. But now, after everything, he is hopelessly, wholly, miraculously in love with her.


	8. What to do with (or is it to?) Flynn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Lucy figures out how they’re going to take down Rittenhouse for good, she contemplates her past with Wyatt, and she finally decides what to do with Flynn. 
> 
> Oh my god, I actually wrote smut. Apparently I'm a gooey, oozy, buttery, sappy, disgusting, hopeless, romance-deprived mess. Who knew! I may gag later, but right now I'm going to run with it. 
> 
> Low expectations are key.
> 
> Typos are the new black.
> 
> #SaveGarciaFlynn

Lucy wakes up warm, rested, and wonderfully wrapped in Flynn. Their arms and legs are intertwined and they’re so close it’s hard to tell where she ends and he begins. She lets out a long, deep, contented sigh as she presses her head closer into his chest and squeezes him just a bit tighter.

He’s still asleep, no doubt exhausted from the events of the past few days as well, yet still he found the wherewithal to take care of her. He always takes care of her, doesn’t he, puts her first, makes sure her needs are met above all others?

God, how far they’d come from those early days of cat and mouse, meeting across time, endlessly sparring with their pseudo-threats and semi-convincing death glares.

He was a walking disaster to be sure, so blinded by his pain and his deep need for justice, and to bring back his family, that he turned into something else, something damaged, something horrible to behold.

Of course, it’s easy to sit back and judge from afar, saying _you’d_ never fall off a cliff like he did, never do such horrible things, but Lucy knows better.

She has been pushed to the brink too, by their shared enemy, and she knows what it’s like to be shoved over the precipice, to see a blur in the boundaries of right and wrong, to cross the line, to become something you yourself don’t even recognize anymore.

Let the judges be damned! If you can pull yourself back from that, taste horror, touch the fires of hell, but again find your way back to your humanity, then you are more than strong at that point, more than a fighter, more than a hero.

No, at that point you are a something much greater. You are a Sage. A Master of Class. An Untouchable. It's easy to let the darkness devour you. It's much, much harder to let the darkness devour you, then come back to light. And that is what Flynn has done.

It was Flynn who actually pulled her back from the brink, holding her in her darkest hour after she nearly murdered Emma, helping her to see that she was broken but never letting her believe she could not be put back together.

She hopes, somehow, she did that for him too. Helped him to see his shatteredness and that he could be remade despite every evil thing that has happened.

She truly believes that everyone can be redeemed. No. More than believes it. She's seen it. She's lived it!

If there is no redemption, then there’s no point for any of us to go on with this shitty, tumultuous life where we all monumentally fuck up at some point.

Truth be told, for longer than she’d like to admit, she’s seen a different side to Flynn, the side that yearns to find his absolution. And, to her, he has more than found it.

While she’s being honest with herself, she might as well admit she’s falling for the guy. I mean, he _is_ in her bed right now, and she’s wrapped around him like a vine clinging for dear life to a tall tree, breathing him in, trying to get even closer, if that’s possible.

 _Of course_ , she’s falling for him goddammit, and with her usual crappy timing. After _The Great Wyatt Debacle of March 2018_ , falling for anyone right now is a bad idea, especially Flynn. Maybe she should just cool her jets a bit and slow down.

 _But I don’t want to cool my jets_! she thinks heatedly to herself. I feel seen by Flynn, heard, respected, treasured, validated. Why would I give this up? I don’t know what _this_ actually is, but I want it, I need it, I need him. I’m not giving this up, so there, she decides!

For once in my life, I’m going to be selfish!

Truthfully, the thought of not having him here is just too painful, and she’s had enough pain thank you very much. She’s done causing her own. She squeezes him around his waist one more time, then leans up and presses a kiss to his chin.

Flynn shifts slightly, his eyelids fluttering a bit before they open. “Good morning,” he says, voice deep and masculine.

“Good morning,” she smiles. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good. Better with you here next to me,” he says, as he slides her up closer to him and presses a kiss to her forehead. “What time is it?”

Lucy glances over at the clock, “a little after 6,” she replies. With that, she sits straight up in bed with a jolt.

“What is it Lucy?” Flynn asks, sitting up next to her, a concerned look on his face. She’s staring at the clock like it’s the arc of the covenant and she can’t peel her eyes away.

“Flynn, I know how we’re going to bring down Rittenhouse,” she says, “and for good.”

\-----

“Come on people,” admonishes Denise, “in the lifeboat, while we’re still young please.”

The team trudges towards the lifeboat halfheartedly. Trips for today include Salem (ugh), Hollywoodland (double ugh), Darlington (oh come on!), and the Great War (clearly Lucy pissed off the gods in a former life and is now being punished).

Forcing a fake smile onto her face, she buckles herself in and says “okay, let’s go save history.”

Salem is pretty straightforward. Rittenhouse wasn’t established until 1778, so there is nothing to do in 1692 other than keep an eye on their past selves as the original events unfold.

Well, the new original events, the ones where Lucy and Rufus save all the accused. No way that wasn’t going to happen again on their watch. Wyatt got to sit Salem out back in the safe house.

Hollywoodland and Darlington were a bit more tricky. Originally, they had discussed one team researching Rittenhouse operatives on these missions, while the other team stayed with their earlier identities.

Ford and Lindbergh were alive in 1941 and could be questioned, or they could interrogate the father/son team that stole Citizen Kane.

And in 1955, they could follow Senator McCarthy or Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago, and try and get some intel that way.

But with Lucy’s new plan, none of those leads seemed relevant any longer. No, they just needed to get in, get out, and collapse the timelines for these trips.

Honestly, that was fine with Lucy. She hadn’t been looking forward to reliving her one-night relationship with Wyatt and dragging it out would just be torture. Truth be told, he was still in love with Jessica. He always had been, he always would be.

Yes, she believes he does love her too, in a way, but it’s different with Jessica, and she knows it. Wyatt picked her, and that’s fine. It’s as it should be. Lucy has made her peace with that.

Thankfully, Flynn stayed behind on these two trips so she and Wyatt could have an honest discussion about all of this without him there. Lucy thinks it went well. Honestly, she feels bad for Wyatt.

He and Jessica are just two more sacrificial pawns in Rittenhouse’s master chess game. Just like her, Amy, Flynn, and like anyone who gets in Rittenhouse’s almighty way. Well no more, she thinks. It’s time to end this!

The Great War was the hardest. Seeing her mom again (she had managed to avoid her in Salem), seeing Emma, letting them get away with Nicholas Keynes again, who turns out to be her Great Grandfather according to Denise. Man, she has some shitty relations.

Lucy thought about stepping into the cabin for a bit, incapacitating her 1918 self somehow, impersonating that Lucy so she could pump her mother and Emma for information. But it was too dangerous. Rittenhouse was surprisingly still in the dark about these little trips to their own timelines, and they needed to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Besides, she didn’t really think she was going to get any info out of her mother anyway. Her mom hadn’t really trusted her on this trip, not believing for one minute that any of the brainwashing techniques Rittenhouse had employed on her during her 6-week incarceration had worked, but hoping anyway that Lucy would come around and get with the program.

Lucy’s not even sure why the drugs, hypnotism, manipulation, coercion, compulsion and other methods hadn’t worked on her. Honestly, the whole experience is still just a blur in her mind.

What she remembers most is that she felt utterly alone, her whole team dead, Rittenhouse had won, and all she wanted to do was take out the mothership, her mother, Emma, and her in it if need be, so she could end all of this insanity.

 _Destroy the mothership_ was her singular thought. She just wanted it all to be over.

No, talking to her mother in 1918 wasn’t going to be of any help, so she decided against it. One of these days, she and dear old mom would have their day of reckoning, but not yet, not until she and the team had the upper hand on Rittenhouse. That was priority.  

Finally done with the missions, she, Wyatt and Rufus exited the lifeboat utterly exhausted but glad things had gone according to plan. These long-ass, multi-jump missions would be the death of her!

She was glad to see Flynn waiting there for her, leaning up against the wall, arms crossed, smile turned up on one corner of his mouth and a glimmer in his eyes.

“How did it go,” he asks, “you look beat.”

“Good, I think,” she answers. “Glad it’s over.”

He puts his arm around her and they walk to the kitchen together, Wyatt looking at them thoughtfully, realizing it is probably time he accepts their togetherness and quits sulking. He heads off towards his room to be alone for a while.

\-----

_Later that evening:_

“Hey, come with me,” says Flynn, taking her hand and pulling her off the bed where she had been doing some light perusing of her journal before going to sleep. “I want to show you something.”

She follows him out of her room, up an endless number of stairs until they reach the 15th floor at the top of the atrium. “I did some exploring today while you were away and want to show you what I found,” he says.

He leads her down the hall, past several doors, and into a second stairwell at the end of the corridor. He points to a metal ladder that goes up into the ceiling. “I’ll go first.”

“What’s up there?” replies Lucy.

“You’ll see,” he says, “it’s the roof, and a bit more.”

Lucy follows him up the ladder, being careful to not slip in her usual, clumsy manner. She reaches the top and he helps her out onto the sprawling rooftop of their home base.

Overall, it’s dark, not much in the way of home or street lights in their area, only the dim light from the atrium below shining through the reinforced glass ceiling lights their path.

She can see a few nearby buildings, but they are mostly dark too. An industrial park maybe? The kind that looks abandoned at night, but then bustles up during the day? Who knows? They must be somewhere remote though.

Thankfully, the darkness allows for a beautifully clear view of the stars above. They are gorgeous.

“This way,” he says, motioning her to follow.

They walk towards the side of the roof where she sees a small, enclosed, rooftop greenhouse made of what looks like wood and glass. A few of the windows are broken, but it is otherwise still intact.

“I’ve been spending time up here the last few days, to distract myself while you were away. It’s nice. I wanted to show it to you,” says Flynn.

She can tell he’s made himself at home up here. There’s an old vinyl chair in the corner and a stack of boards formed into a makeshift table with several books on it. He does love to throw himself into his books. They have that in common.

The windows look like they’ve been recently cleaned and the area tidied, and in the other corner, leaned against the wall, are 5 or 6 hotel mattresses, all still in their plastic covers.

“You planning on moving in up here?” Lucy asks, pointing to the mattresses with a smile.

“Maybe,” he replies, “if you throw me out of our room,” a slight smirk on his face.

“ _Our_ room?” she says, suspiciously.

“Well, yes,” he says, “it’s become _our_ room lately, don’t you think?”

“Hmm, yes, well I guess I can’t argue with you there,” she smiles, turning away to look around the greenhouse again.

“What if I want this to be my room?” she asks.

“Then it’s yours,” says Flynn, without hesitation.

“I’ll take it!” Lucy says with a giggle. “Help me pull these down,” as she begins to move the mattresses and lay them out.

They stack the mattress on top of one another, she lays out the blankets and pillows he's brought up, and climbs in, scooting over so Flynn can join her.

They lay there, on their backs, her arms at her sides, one of Flynn’s behind his head and the other on his stomach. They look up at the immense night sky through the glass roof, taking in the feel of the warm summer night air blowing in through the open doors.

“Today was hard,” she says softly, still looking up at the sky.

Flynn turns slightly towards her, “I can’t even imagine, Lucy. Having to watch yourself get accused again in Salem, reliving your relationship with Wyatt, remembering what it felt like when you were Rittenhouse’s prisoner, seeing your mother again. I’m so sorry.”

“That was hard,” says Lucy, turning to face him now, looking him in the eye, “but the hardest part was actually being away from you for those last trips.”

Flynn’s eyes widen, and his mouth opens slightly as if he is about to say something, but nothing comes out.

“Flynn . . . ” she continues, “Garcia . . . I don’t know what you and I are, or what the future holds for us, but I do know that I care deeply about you, and it hurts to be away from you.”

“It hurts to be away from you too,” he whispers unsteadily. “All I could think about today was you coming back here safely, coming back here to me. I don’t want to be away from you either Lucy. I’m lost when you’re not here.”

She leans in and kisses him tenderly, pressing her lips to his, softly bunching his shirt into her hand and pulling him towards her. “I feel lost without you too, Garcia” she says into his lips, tugging his shirt a little bit harder to deepen the kiss.

For a moment, Flynn forgets how to kiss, how to move, how to breathe. His brain has literally short circuited. Is this really happening?

Lucy pulls back a little and looks in his eyes. “Garcia?” she says quietly, questioningly.

God she’s beautiful, and warm, and soft, and strong, and brilliant. How is she here, in _his_ arms of all places? He doesn’t know, but god does he want her. He sees that same want reflected back at him in her eyes. She wants him too.

That look is enough to jump start his shorted-out brain and he reaches for Lucy, pulling her partially on top of him, as he kisses her back, intensely, longingly, aching for her, pressing one hand into her hair and one behind her back to pull her closer into him.

Lucy slides her arms on either side of his chest, running them up under his shirt and moving them deliberately across his heated, naked skin.

He feels so good. His chest and arms are firm, but soft to touch, and she is all at once overcome with want and desire to feel him more, to be closer.

She pulls his shirt upward to take it off, and he helps her by leaning forward, breaking the kiss for only a moment as it comes over his head. Then they are pressed together again, drinking each other in with the deepness of their kisses.

Lucy climbs onto his lap, straddling him, and she can feel his hardness beneath her, pressing into her, sending quivers radiating to her core.

He sits up a bit more, kissing her neck now, then grabs her shirt and pulls it up over her head, dropping it to the floor and moving his lips to her breasts.

She grabs handfuls of his soft, thick hair and urges his explorations on by pressing his head into her chest and arching her back to give him better access.

He unclasps her bra and it falls away as his fingers come up to lightly squeeze at her nipples, causing them to harden into their own awakened erections. At this rate, she is not going to last very long. She is so wet and she wants this warm, strong, sexy man inside her. Now!

She pushes him back onto the bed, giving him an untamed, wanting look, and begins to remove his belt and pants, ever so slowly and seductively, sliding them off him as she slides herself along the length of his body.

She does the same with his underwear, stopping for just a moment to take in the gloriousness of his hard, statuesque body, then crashes her mouth onto his again in what can only be described as a primal, lust-filled,  _let’s skip the rest of the foreplay because I need to fuck you right now_ , kiss.

She makes quick work of taking off her bottoms, never breaking their ravenous kiss, then shifts over him so he’s at her entrance, and slides him into her with one quick thrust. Lucy lets out an audible moan, and freezes as she lets his long, thick, penetrating dick settle into her.

He feels _so_ good, so deep, so perfectly placed inside of her. Opening her eyes, she looks down at him with unfettered longing, imploring him to catch fire with her and to burn.

For Flynn’s part, he can go ahead and die now. This is clearly heaven, it exists, and he’s somehow conned Saint Peter into letting him past the pearly gates.

Lucy Preston is stunning, spectacular, mighty, and has totally and completely wrecked him in a matter of minutes. He fits inside of her like hand to glove and as he slid into her he began to feel whole, intact, unbroken. “Lucy,” he says breathlessly.

She leans down, whispering into his ear, breathless herself, “I’m protected. The shot. I need you to make love to me right now. Please.”

Instantly, Flynn grabs Lucy’s hips and begins to slowly and deliberately move them back and forth, grinding them into him. “Mmm, oh, Garcia,” she says, “god, that feels so good.”

Flynn pants back, muttering something that sounds like a strangled “Lucy” and continues to pick up the pace. She rides him with intense, powerful strides, him simultaneously bucking his hips into her and pulling her hips into him with every thrust of his bulging cock.

He moves his thumb to rub over her erected clit and it takes only moments before she falls apart, coming over him, moaning his name loudly as she shudders, and shakes, and spasms around him. He comes then too, moaning her name, half through tears, half in prayer, so deep inside of her he is touching her to her core and he knows it.

For the first time in years, he has totally let go, giving himself to Lucy Preston wholly and absolutely, body, mind, and soul. He's never given himself to anyone like this before, so fully, with such abandon. It makes him feel vulnerable and exposed, defenseless. As they lay there in warmth and exhilaration, tears escape Flynn’s eyes and roll down his face.

Lucy lays relaxed and calm on top of him, eyes closed, still straddling him with him inside her, her head buried in his neck, his warm chest pressed against hers, her hands resting on him, her feet curled around the back of his warm thighs.

Oblivious to his tears, she has tears of her own. She feels so utterly complete and whole with him. Something she has never felt before, with anyone. “I love you, Garcia,” she says shyly, not looking up, keeping her head buried in his neck. “You don’t have to say it back. I just wanted you to know.”

At those words, Flynn’s heart bursts and he hugs her tighter to him, as tight as he can. “Oh Lucy, don’t you already know? I love you too. I have for so long.”

She looks up at him, a smile across her face. Seeing his tears, she wipes them away, and he wipes hers, as they chuckle slightly at themselves.

He pulls the blanket over them as she snuggles into him a bit more, and they lay there a little longer, under the stars, savoring and cherishing the deepness of the love they feel for each other. Not knowing what the future holds, or daring to care, just knowing that in this moment, they belong to each other and nobody can take that away from them.


	9. Four Rounds of Flynn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with more fluff (I'm a fluff hoe), more sex, and more traveling back to the past to unlock Lucy's plan. Oh, and Jiya has a new vision. 
> 
> Typo is my middle name. Not really, but it could be.

Sitting on the bed across from Flynn, Lucy smiles at him shyly, slowly sipping the coffee he’s brought her. Her cheeks slightly blushed, she remembers their night of amazing sexcapades.

The first round had basically been a hot, carnal, lust driven frenzy. After all the flirting and fantasizing, she was ready for the main attraction, the headliner, the feature performance if you will. They both were. They wanted it, needed it, and dove in head first. Literally.

The second round in his shower downstairs a bit later was still hungry, and loud, he’d had to cover her mouth with his to stifle her moans. At least that time there were a few stolen moments to enjoy each other’s touch, feel, taste.

Round three was all his doing. Somewhere in the early morning hours she woke to him rubbing his hands tenderly, affectionately up and down her legs, slowly easing them up her thigh, his soft, scruffy chin following behind. In a half-sleepy daze, with his expert tongue and skillful fingers, he made her come with ease, then held her as she drifted back to sleep. Or maybe she dreamed that one?

At night, in the dark, when it was just the two of them, her passion was wholly and completely unbridled. Now, facing him in the early morning light, Lucy feels exposed, having bared all of herself to him and now waiting for, well, she doesn't know what, maybe the other shoe to drop.

But the other shoe doesn’t drop. The look on Flynn’s face is jovial and light, bouncing back and forth between intense joy and tender affection. It’s not a look she’s seen on him before, let alone on any man ever looking at her. It touches her heart. She feels . . . what is that? . . . it feels like . . . home.

“Last night, was, um, nice,” she offers shyly.

“Nice?” he says playfully. “I would think we earned a rating of something other than _nice_.”

“Oh, and what rating would you give?” she asks.

“Well, let me think,” he says considering, “I’d say it was . . . it was fine,” a smile behind his lips.

“Fine??!!” she exclaims. “FINE????” I’ll show you fine.” Lucy jumps off the bed, nearly spilling her coffee, a bit sore in places she didn’t even know existed. She strides over to Flynn, bends down over him as he sits looking up at her, and plants a long, sensual kiss on his lips.

She takes her time, investigating every curve of the inside of his lips and mouth, biting his lip as she pulls back, taking it with her, releasing it from her teeth and letting it go with a deliberate snap.

“Now tell me again how everything was just _fine_ ,” she asks.  

At this, Flynn laughs audibly, grabs her by the waist, pulls her onto his lap, and kisses her playfully. “Okay, more than fine. A thousand times, no a million, a trillion times more than fine,” he smiles.

He kisses her again, going from lighthearted and playful to something deeper. His kisses become slow, unhurried, meditative and he looks watchfully into her eyes. “I love you Lucy,” he says earnestly.

“I love you too, Garcia,” she replies.

He lays her down gently on the bed and this time their union is not a wild, primal frenzy, but rather is slow, deep, careful, with his soul reaching out for hers through his eyes, fastening itself to hers. It takes her breath away and stops her heart for a moment, until all she can see is her soul fastening itself to his too.

\-----

Four rounds of Garcia Flynn is definitely ALL THAT (and a bag of chips!), but Lucy is a little worse for wear as she walks into the kitchen, feeling like she’s been riding a horse (or more accurately, a cowboy). The whole team is there and she grabs a cup of coffee and sits down (groan, she hopes Garcia is this sore too!).

“Great, you’re all here,” says Denise. Let’s run through the plan.

“First, we go to 1954 D.C.,” says Wyatt, where Rufus will keep an eye on our past selves while Flynn, Lucy and I stake out the Rittenhouse summit and get the names and photos of everyone that walks into that house.”

“Great. Make sure you all follow protocol so you aren’t seen by yourselves, Emma or by Lucy’s grandfather, Ethan Cahill,” replies Denise. “Or anyone in Rittenhouse.” They all nod.

“From ’54 we’ll jump back here to collapse the timeline, then jump again to 1962 Chicago,” says Flynn.

“Where I get shot again by Al Capone. Or watch myself get shot. Yay,” says Rufus sardonically.  

“I said I was sorry about that Rufus,” says Flynn, “do I have to apologize again?”

“No,” replies Rufus, “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. You’re like the scary Terminator robot reprogrammed and sent back to protect Sarah Connor in the sequel, but you still freak her out because you, well you know, you tried to kill her. It's all still creepy.”

“I promise, I’m on your side now guys. You can trust me,” says Flynn with a smile and a wink.

“Great, I feel so much better,” says Rufus flatly.

“Look, if I could take it back,” says Flynn, “I would. I’d go in and Flynn it up. But Lucy says we don’t want to change too much history, otherwise we may come back to a totally different future.”

“Flynn it up?” says Lucy questioningly.

“Yeah, that’s that thing Flynn does when he goes in and, you know, like does his crazy Flynn shit,” says Rufus. The corner of Lucy’s mouth turns up into a slight smile.

“Flynn’s right,” continues Lucy, getting back to task. “Every time we change history and drag the older timeline into this one, we risk changing things in this timeline. Things we can’t even imagine. Like when I lost Amy. We’ve been lucky so far that the things we’ve changed haven’t caused anyone else to disappear. But we need to be more careful.”

“Rufus, you don’t need to follow the other us’ in 1962. Wyatt and Flynn can do it,” says Lucy, looking to Wyatt and Flynn who both look at her like she’s just asked them to strip down naked and dance the haka right there on the kitchen table.

“Right?!” she says, firmly. They both nod unenthusiastically. “We can stay with the lifeboat,” she adds. “Flynn says Mayor William Hale Thompson, who was Rittenhouse, doesn’t have the info we’re looking for anyway, so we can just hang back.”

This makes Rufus happy. At least someone’s happy.

Lucy continues. “After that we are going to Paris 1927.”

“I’ll stay with the us’ on that trip, I’d like to see Josephine Baker again,” says Rufus with a smitten look on his face.

Jiya looks at him wide eyed. “Really, she says. Maybe I should come on this trip too.”

“I mean . . . see her . . . perform . . . as an artist,” says Rufus, backtracking.

“Uh huh,” replies Jiya, not really believing him, but giving him a smile.

“While we’re in Paris,” continues Lucy, “Flynn, Wyatt and I will search Julian Charvet’s home. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the clock we are looking for there in his collection, or at least a clue to where it might be now.”

“Maybe we should question Charles Lindbergh as well,” says Flynn.

“No, it’s too risky,” says Lucy. “Plus, I talked to him the first time and I don’t think he knows very much yet. He doesn’t get in deep with Rittenhouse for a few more years.”

“After Paris,” says Wyatt, “Rufus and I can jump to Ohio, 1983.”

“On your little trip to keep Jessica’s parent’s from hooking up,” adds Flynn reproachful.

“Yes,” agrees Wyatt, frustrated. “Save it Flynn. It’s not like you haven’t done a bunch of stuff you regret.”

“Yeah, Wyatt, but who’s the reason we had to find a new safe house to begin with?” chides Flynn.

“Hey, HEY,” scolds Lucy, “can we save the fighting for the actual bad guys? Can we?” Looking at them like she can’t believe either of these two jugheads have made it this far in life. Fearing her wrath, the both shut up and nod silently.

“Great,” says Denise. “While you are gone, Connor, Jiya and I will take care of things on our end. Good luck everyone.”

\-----

Lucy and Flynn exit the lifeboat looking like they could all use a drink, or three, while Wyatt and Rufus head out to 1983. “How’d it go?” asks Connor.

“Great,” says Flynn, “if you count nearly getting killed by myself in Paris when Captain Obvious was spotted by me in 1927.”

“Who’s Captain Obvious?,” asks Connor under his breath, leaning towards Lucy.

“Wyatt,” mouths Lucy. Connor nods in understanding and looks back at Flynn.

Flynn continues. “I had to make myself disappear earlier then planned, then pretend to be him for the rest of the mission! I swear, the day we’ve had!”

“How about you guys?” says Lucy, interrupting Flynn’s tirade. “Is Denise back yet from Flynn’s safe house?”

“No, not yet,” says Connor. “She should be back anytime.”

“What about Jiya, where’s she?” asks Lucy.

“She’s in her room,” replies Connor, “searching, so to speak." He pauses. "Whenever Rufus leaves she gets, well, she gets terrified, and retreats to her room to her visions. It’s not healthy but I don’t know what any of us can do about it.”

Lucy shutters visibly at his words. “I’ll go check in on her,” she says, looking forlorn.

\-----

Lucy knocks on Jiya’s door, dreading what she may find inside. She can’t imagine what it’s been like for her, being kidnapped by Jessica, living in the 1800’s for three years, having these weird visions, losing Rufus.

Jiya doesn’t answer, so she opens the door and goes in. As expected, she sees Jiya laying on the bed, her eyes rolled back in her head, her body stiff, quivering slightly as she searches her mind, her visions, for anything that will help her know Rufus is okay, help her know that, one day, everything is going to be okay.

“Jiya,” says Lucy, shaking her arm. “Wake up, Jiya.” Jiya doesn’t stir.

Lucy shakes her harder this time, “hey, Jiya, it’s me, Lucy.” Nothing.

Frightened, Lucy grabs Jiya by both arms and shakes her vigorously, “Jiya, JIYA! Wake up!!” she yells.

Jiya sits straight up in bed, looking a bit like Dracula rising out of his coffin, a dazed look on her face. She slowly regains consciousness and turns her head towards Lucy, blinking her eyes to focus. “Jiya, are you okay?” says Lucy, “You scared me. I couldn’t get you to come out of it.”

Jiya looks at Lucy, her face white, her eyes bloodshot, “Lucy, I think I’ve found the forbidden colors.”

 


	10. Colors, Plans and Crises . . . Oh My!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Jiya's not okay (and if your heart is like mine right now, raw and really in need of some reassurance, she WILL be okay soon). 
> 
> Also, the one where Lucy's plan is laid out . . . well most of it, some of it, -ish.
> 
> And Flynn has an existential crisis. There's that.

“Jiya,” says Lucy. “What are you talking about? What forbidden colors?”

Jiya doesn’t answer, still unsteady and disoriented from her vision. Lucy holds her arms to help steady her just as Rufus comes in.

“Hey,” says Rufus. “Connor said . . .” He trails off just as Jiya suddenly goes limp, falls back on the mattress, eyes rolling back in her head as she begins to convulse.

“No, no, no, no, no,” exclaims Rufus. “Not again. It’s another seizure. Like the one she had after her first jump.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” says Lucy. “Um, um, um, turn her on her side, loosen her clothes so she’s not restricted . . . uh . . .  Move anything that she can hurt herself on, and don’t put anything into her mouth.”

She pauses. “Oh, and call 9-1-1 if it lasts longer than 5 minutes. Seizures that go too long can cause brain damage.”

Rufus arches one eyebrow and looks at Lucy like she’s crazy.

“What? I looked up seizure first aid after you told me about her first one,” says Lucy, Rufus still looking at her like she’s lost her ever-loving mind. “What? It’s what I do. I look things up.”

Before she’s finished her words, Jiya’s stiffening and shaking begin to wane. “Jiya . . . Jiya,” says Rufus, frightened. “Are you okay?”

Jiya groans, groggy but seemingly coming out of it.

“She’ll be tired for a bit,” sighs Rufus, in slight relief. “She needs to rest. What the hell happened?”

“I came in here to check on her,” answers Lucy. “It was hard to wake her up, she was really out of it. Then she said something about seeing forbidden colors. Then went into a seizure.” Lucy sighs, relieved Jiya is resting comfortably now, but terrified all the same. “What are the forbidden colors anyway?”

“I don’t know,” says Rufus. “Jiya talked about them once. Told me that other people who have visions have seen them. But she didn’t know what they were. Fuck. This is bad, right?” He continues, looking at Lucy worriedly. “I mean, seizures are bad, right?”

Lucy looks at Rufus, wanting to reassure him but not really knowing what she should say. “Well, they’re not good. They’re a sign that something is wrong in the brain, too much excitation. Anyone can have one. It’s just really bad if you keep having them.”

“Fuck,” says Rufus. “She can’t keep doing this. She has to stop these visions. I can’t lose her, Lucy.”

“I know,” Lucy replies. “But look, she’s okay now, she’s going to be okay.”

Jiya stirs, rolling over into Rufus’ arms.

Lucy puts her arm around Rufus’ shoulders, pulling him closer in a feeble attempt at comfort; but there really is no comfort for this. “Just hold her until she wakes up, Rufus. She’ll be okay. I’ll go get Denise.” He nods. With that, Lucy walks out hoping she didn’t just lie to Rufus and that Jiya really will be okay. Fuck.

\-----

“I know we’re all worried about Jiya,” says Denise, gathered in the lifeboat bay with the rest of team. “I’ve got the doctor coming again to check her out and will keep you updated. While that’s happening, we still have work to do.”

Lucy notices that the team, looking battered, run ragged and generally just really tired of this crap, nods. I mean, what else can they do at this point? They still have at least 12 more timelines from their past to collapse, some of them the worst history they’ve been through, the kind of history nobody wants to relive.

And god knows what Emma and present-day Rittenhouse are up to. After the 1787 jump, probably to activate a sleeper, they jumped again to Southampton 1912 to play god with the Titanic or something.

Since then, according to Connor, they’ve been quiet. Who knows what kind of mess they made to the new timelines – timelines 27 and 28? She can’t think about that right now. First, they just need to get these next 12 trips done and figure out how to help Jiya be okay.

The weight of all that is happening to Jiya, and to all of them, hits her. This is bad. _Really_ bad.

She has no idea how they are going to fix all the timelines and save the universe. She barely understands how they’re fixing things now with all their jumps, electromagnetic pulses and timeline collapses.

It occurs to her that the only thing that could make this time travel shit storm worse are some Nazis, but in true _the-universe-is-really-pissed-off-at-you-right-now-and-is-punishing-you_ fashion, of course there will be Nazis. Of course, there will be! If they make it out of this intact, it will be a damn miracle!

“I’ll go first,” says Wyatt, beginning the debrief and snapping Lucy out of her mental doom spiral. “The trip to 1983 was fine, no issues.”

“Great,” says Denise. “And I’ve gathered all the intel we collected from Ethan Cahill’s place and brought it here so we can query it as needed. It has names, dates, locations, events, everything that led us to make all the Rittenhouse arrests last year, including arresting Benjamin Cahill. Connor is mining it now for any information on Heman Clark, that clockmaker you asked about Flynn, and Davidson, his son. He’s also looking more into your family, Lucy. Nicholas Keynes for starters.”

“Yes, I haven’t found much yet,” says Connor, “but I’ll keep digging. We’re matching it up to the 1954 photos you took at the Rittenhouse summit, to see if there is anyone we might have missed in the arrests.”

“I also made a trip to Flynn’s safe house, or safe _church_ I should say,” says Denise, looking at Flynn. “Here is the Rittenhouse key that Clyde stole for Bonnie.” She hands the key to Lucy.

Lucy takes it, looking intently at the intricate gold key with beautiful engraved detail. “Clyde told us he stole this from Henry Ford, so the Fords definitely hold some of the answers we’re looking for.”

“The key opened an old clock at the National Museum of American History in D.C.” says Flynn, “which is where I found the scroll from Benedict Arnold to his wife.”

“Right,” continues Lucy, “this key, this Rittenhouse key, has an inscription on it, in Latin. It translates _the key to the beginning of all time and the key to the end of all time_.”

“Well that’s not ominous or anything,” snarks Flynn. “Why didn’t they just go with _key of death_ or _one key to rule them all_?”

Lucy half smiles with one corner of her mouth, god she loves his sass.

She shakes her head, then continues, “I think the scroll from Arnold was only one clock this key unlocked. Think about it, Arnold’s scroll talks about the beginning of Rittenhouse, or the beginning of time, _their_ time. I think there’s another clock that this key opens, one that represents the end, one that would mean the end of Rittenhouse. We have to find that clock.”

“But what does that even mean,” says Wyatt, “the end of Rittenhouse? How can a clock, or whatever’s inside it, end all of this?”

“I don’t know,” says Lucy, “but we have to find out. I . . . I mean Lucy #126 . . . Future Lucy . . . Lu . . . whatever we’re calling her, put a picture of this key in the journal. It’s the most worn page in there, 100 times more worn then any of the others, and there are notes all over the margin. My guess is that she . . . I . . . believed this key was important. Actually, beyond important. Critical to end Rittenhouse.

I think she spent hours staring at that page and thinking what it could possibly mean, penciling in notes, erasing them and then writing in new ones. Scribbled in the margin is a picture of a second clock. I think she figured all of this out already. I think she left that page and her notes there for us to find, so we could find that clock.”

“You searched for a clock at Julian Charvet’s home,” says Denise, “was it there?”

“All of the clocks in his home were all wrong for this key,” says Flynn. “The clock this key opened was very old, older than anything Charvet had, and it had a special kind of lock that only this key would fit into.”

“So where do we think this clock is then?” asks Wyatt, “do you think Ford has it . . . had it . . . when he was alive? We’re going back to 1893. Can we ask him, or Edison, or JP Morgan, they were all Rittenhouse?”

"Maybe we can get Houdini to hypnotize them," says Flynn with a smile.

“Ford may know,” says Lucy, smiling, shaking her head at Flynn “more importantly, I think this clock was made by a master clockmaker. That’s the only way that scroll could’ve stayed hidden all those years. A clockmaker like David Rittenhouse.”

“Or his son, John Rittenhouse,” adds Flynn, building off her logic.

“Yes, exactly,” nods Lucy, “I think the answers we’re looking for about where this clock is now, can be found in 1780, with Benedict Arnold.”

“And the Rittenhouses,” adds Flynn, a frown now on his face.

“Great,” says Wyatt, “Let’s go see some of history's biggest dicks. Again.”

\-----

“Come on, guys,” says Rufus, buckling into the lifeboat. “One mission down, and three to go. I want to get back to Jiya as soon as possible. She should be done with the doctor by the time we get back.”

“Okay, okay,” says Flynn agitated, “hold your horses, we’re almost ready. And can you please tell me again why I couldn’t just kill Emma in that cabin on this trip?”

“Simple,” says Wyatt, looking at Flynn with a slight smirk, “because you’ll fuck up the timeline. That’s all we need to know.” He seems to be softening a bit toward Flynn and Lucy wonders if he is starting to accept things accept them.

“Because,” says Rufus, “killing Emma in this timeline could change too many things when we go back to 2018. We wouldn’t know what we were going back to. We can’t defeat Rittenhouse if we keep changing the timeline. It’s like they say, better the devil you know.”

“Fine,” says Flynn, still angry, not making eye contact with Lucy, or anyone. “Let’s go to 1893. Maybe we can ride the Ferris Wheel this time,” he adds sarcastically.   

\-----

Standing outside Houdini’s tent in 1893, carefully keeping out of sight and watching over their past selves, Lucy leans against a water barrel, and reaches to take Flynn’s hand. He pulls it away, looking down and pretending to check his watch.

“What’s the matter, Flynn,” she asks, concerned with this anger and frustration, which seem to keep building the deeper they jump into the past.

“Nothing,” says Flynn, nearly snapping at her, then softening. “Nothing,” he says again, calmer, taking her hand in his but not looking her in the eye. “I’m just tired of these missions.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, not believing him. “You know, it would be totally understandable if . . . well, if these missions to the past . . . I mean these trips where we’re not on the same side . . .”

“I’m fine, Lucy,” he replies, not letting her finish, but looking her in the eye this time. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. What we need to be worrying about is Rittenhouse and finding that clock. Nothing else matters right now.”

“It does matter,” she says fervently, reminded that this man is used to burying his feelings, not giving them any credence, until the point that they gnaw away at his insides and then fester into a toxic infection.

He’s the poster child for it actually, for whatever the opposite of emotional intelligence is. Emotional un-intelligence? If that term existed, she’s pretty sure there would be a picture of Garcia Flynn under its definition in the dictionary.

Well, the old Garcia Flynn anyway. He’s made so much progress, opening up to her, letting her in, actually talking about his feelings, revealing his soul to her a little at a time. She’ll be damned if she is going to let him lapse back into his primordial state of tall, dark and moron.

“No! It does matter, Flynn. We’ve come too far for you to shut me out. Tell me what’s going on with you?” she says.

Just then, the 1893 versions of Flynn and Karl exit the tent, Houdini and Lucy in front of them, looking scared, like they’re being dragged somewhere at gunpoint, which they technically are.

“We have to go,” Flynn says.

“This conversation isn’t over, Garcia,” she says, forcing him to look into her eyes. _Not by a long shot_ , she thinks.

By the time they’ve collapsed the timeline and are ready to go onto the next date, they still haven’t found a chance to talk and Lucy begins to think they never will. Sigh. So much for tall, dark, and enlightened.

\-----

“Are you guys ready for this?” says Rufus, stepping off the lifeboat into New York, 1780.

“No,” say Wyatt, Lucy and Flynn in unison, all of them staring at the road that leads into town like it’s a dental chair about to be their home for the next several hours while they get a root canal.

“Yeah, me neither,” says Rufus.

“Okay then, does everybody know what they need to do?” Lucy sighs. “Good, let’s get this over with.”

Walking slowing into town, Flynn looks over at the team, his team. Everyone is unusually quiet, taking their time to collect their thoughts before the mission, they all may even be dragging their feet a little to stave off the inevitable just a little longer.  

He wonders if he can even call this group his team. The only one he really cares about is Lucy, to be honest. He’s in love with her and puts up with the rest of these yahoos to be with her. Yes, Lucy is the only one he’s here for.

Well, and maybe Rufus. Rufus is _okay_. I mean, he doesn’t hate the guy. And the two of them have been through a lot lately.

Okay, and maybe Jiya. Jiya’s nice, not judgy, accepts him for the most part . . .

But that’s not the point. Can he really be a part of this team after everything he’s done to them? That’s the goddam point!

By god, in the last few days alone he’s watched himself try to kill Lucy’s grandfather, consequently likely erasing her from existence, gotten Rufus shot, left them all for dead at the hands of expert gunslinger Jesse James, and kidnapped Lucy, forcing her to help him kidnap Houdini to kill the Rittenhouse three.

And the worst is yet to come. Fuck. Where had it all gone so dreadfully wrong, where had _he_ gone so dreadfully wrong. How was he able to do such horrible, horrible things, to become such a monster?

He looks over at Lucy as she walks quietly beside the others. How could he ever have thought that he had a chance with her after everything he’s done.

Sure, they both seem to have forgotten his crimes for now, for a little while anyway, but here they are having to relive every horrific minute of them all. You can’t just do all the horrors he’s done in his past and then move on . . . fall in love again . . . _be_ loved. Nobody can.

Some sin, some evil is unforgivable. There’s no pardon for him in all of this, no happy ending. Lucy’s going to see all of his vile actions play out yet again in front of her and that will be the end of it, the end of them . . .

“I know what you’re thinking, Garcia,” he hears from next to him. Lucy has fallen behind from the others who are up ahead and is walking next to him now. “I see that look on your face and it’s not true. What you’re telling yourself in that head of yours right now, it’s not the truth.”

He looks over at her, dragged out of his fear and self-loathing by the look on her face. She is looking at him with gentleness, kindness, love. He can’t take it, can’t take this look on her face, the way she looks at him with such humanity.

He looks down at his feet, contorting his face in pain and hiding it from her, from everyone, she mustn’t see his pain, nobody should, then turns and moves towards the side of the road, into the brush, where he can get away and collect himself.

“Hey guys,” calls Lucy to the others. “we’ll catch up, keep going.” They keep going and she goes to Flynn, takes him by the arm, turning him towards her so she can see his pained, twisted face.

“It’s not true, Flynn. I know you’re thinking right now, that you’re a monster, that you’re evil, it’s what I would be thinking, but you’re not, you’re not! I’m going to say the same thing to you that you said to me in Chinatown, Garcia. Are you listening to me?” she demands, tears forming in her eyes.

“You’re not a monster," she says. "You just lost your way, that’s all. You lost your way like I did when I killed those men, almost killed Emma in cold blood. The pain and grief made you lose sight of who you are for one moment. You’re not a monster. You’re just broken.”

Flynn reaches up, pinching his eyes to hold back his threatening tears, still looking down, unable to look at her.

“You don’t have to stay broken, Flynn. _We_ don’t have to stay broken. It’s a choice. Yes, it’s hard to go on, especially if you have to keep reliving the past, but you can change who you are now, you _have_ changed who you are now.

Don’t let go of that Garcia. Don’t let go of _me_.” Fully fledged tears are pouring down her face now. “Please. Don’t let go.”

She takes a step forward and hesitantly wraps her arms around Flynn’s waist, burying her head into his chest. That’s all he can take. He pulls Lucy into his arms, hanging onto her with all his strength as a few betraying tears finally well to the surface and begin to slowly trickle down his cheeks.

He knows he’s holding onto her too hard, too tight, but if he loosens his hold he’s afraid he’ll be swept away again, back into his judging thoughts, back into his cursed past, where he has no value, no future, no hope. “Lucy,” he says, in almost a sob, but not quite. “I . . . “

“I’m here Garcia,” she says. “I won’t let you go. We’re going to get through this together. Do you hear me? Together. I’m here.”

He doesn’t know why, or how, but something in him unexpectedly cracks, and a wave of undeserving comfort washes over him, over his pain. She’s said the one thing he hadn’t thought of, the one thing he hadn’t planned on. That _she_ was there, would be there, wouldn’t leave him, would face his monsters alongside him.

He can’t ask her to do this, to fight with him, for him, but he knows he doesn’t have to, probably couldn’t stop her if he wanted to. He’s not alone. He’s not _alone_.

He pushes her back slightly, looking at her, wiping the tears from her eyes, placing a tender kiss on her forehead. God he loves this woman. “Together,” he says, gesturing towards the road, taking her hand in his and squeezing it gently.

“Together,” she nods, feeling more confident that whatever faces them in town, they _will_ face together. Clinging tightly to each other, they turn back towards the town, towards Rittenhouse, towards the past, but also realize they are heading towards their future, the future they are going to build together.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s hear it for appropriate first aid for convulsive seizures stuck into this fic! For reasons.
> 
> Thanks to all who left kudos and comments. So grateful!!! Six little words keep going through my head right about now . . . WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING???? 
> 
> Oh well. There's no driver behind the controls of this baby anymore, so everybody hang on! We're all going to find out where we land. Or crash. :)
> 
> Today's chapter was brought to you by the letter T, for Typos, and the letter M, for Many. Sorry.
> 
> lxghtwoodlxve is trying to teach me the way of the Typo. Thank god!


	11. Lost, Found, Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they go back and meet up with David and John Rittenhouse again. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you lxghtwoodlxve for beta'ing this fic. :)

New York, 1780 is pretty much how Lucy remembers it, but this time the awe and wonder she felt, like when she first entered the small town or when she met George Washington, is gone.

So is the fear, and then disbelief, when Flynn ambushed them and then said he needed their help. Also gone is the anger she had at learning about the death of Austin Roe or seeing Charles Cornwallis shot.

Flynn said history would find somebody else to do what they should have, would have, done, and he had been right for the most part. It doesn’t seem fair, but whoever said life is fair?

No, this time, the veil has been lifted. She’s been robbed of any innocence she once had about time travel and history and meant-to-be by all the things she has seen, all the pain, the suffering, the loss.

So this time around is a bit easier, in a way, or at least that’s what she’s telling herself. Flynn seems to have steered around his mental man-breakdown, at least for the time being, and she herself feels oddly calm about what they are about to do.

They have to break into the Rittenhouse estate (again). Ha! No big deal. They can do this, easy peasy. They only have to get past the Rittenhouse guards, the plantation supervisors, not be seen by their past selves, not be seen by anyone who has already seen them, or is currently in view of them. I mean, what could go wrong?

Just because they can’t possibly know where all the Rittenhouse guards are, and they don’t exactly remember all of their previous movements in detail, and just because they weren’t all together in the mansion to begin with, with Rufus being cast to the sidelines by idiots who fear the color of his skin.

And so what if they have to navigate multiple lines of sight, on multiple fronts, while they sneak in and figure out how to find that clock, if it’s even here, if it even exists. Yep, what could possibly go wrong?

Before she can think about how much this really sucks, it’s happening. She and Flynn are peering through the window from outside as David Rittenhouse shoots Benedict Arnold with Wyatt’s gun, their own Wyatt and Rufus watching from the far away tree line.

Wyatt is hoping his sharpshooting skills are top notch today as he targets his long-distance assault rifle with laser guided scope into the house just above David Rittenhouse’s head. If the shit hits the fan, this tyrannical fuckbag is going down first.

Without really thinking about it, adrenalin and instincts her guide, Lucy runs into the house through the door they’d been next to as Flynn watches her in surprise. That, he was not expecting. Neither was she.

She only has a few moments here, skirting down the hall and getting into position. She hears Rufus yell “hey,” followed by a gunshot, then the sounds of a fight breaking out.

She peers around the corner just in time to see her past self being heavy-handedly steered to David Rittenhouse’s bedchamber by some bicentennial quarter, colonial drummer look alike.

She hides in a curtain as they pass, hoping beyond hope that he, and her past self, don't see her. Then, just at the right moment, she sticks out her foot, tripping Mr. bicentennial man, who stumbles, trying to catch himself, finally falling hard to the ground.

Lucy feels a deep sense of gratification and pride at her quick thinking and as she watches 1780 Lucy, the one who is actually from 2016, smash a nearby vase over his big, misogynistic head, knocking him out cold.

Back then, she had wondered how he lost his footing, now she knows. She was there, tripping that knuckle dragger and allowing her other self the chance to take him down. His bedchamber can kiss her ass!

“Lucy,” whispers Flynn from behind her, arms up, shoulders shrugged, a _what-the-hell-are-you-doing_ look on his face. He grabs her arm and pulls her back down the hall and out the door.

“You could’ve been seen,” he hisses. She’s about to respond but stops when she hears footsteps running towards them down the same hall they were in.

“Quick, get down.” Flynn almost spits the words, pushing Lucy behind some nearby wooden crates. The door they were just standing next to flies open and out runs John Rittenhouse, terrified, panicked, sweat and tears rolling down his face. He makes it a few steps out the door when he stops suddenly, the sound of a loud gunshot echoing behind him from where he just came. The gunshot that killed his father.

John grabs his face with his hands, doubling over, sobbing, trying to pluck the horrifying thoughts of what’s happening to him, to his family, out of his brain. He sobs a few more times, then stands up and runs toward the forest as fast as his legs will carry him.

“Come on,” says Flynn. “Let’s go after him.”

Lucy looks at him hesitantly, eyes wide.

“I’m not going to kill him, Lucy,” Flynn says. “But we should follow him.”

“No, Flynn,” she counters. “We have to find that clock. The room is empty, now’s our chance to search for it.”

“You search for the clock,” says Flynn. “I’ll follow the boy.” He runs off after John before she can say anything more.

 _Shit, shit, shit,_ she thinks. If Flynn kills John Rittenhouse, everything in the future will likely change. Damn that man for being so impulsive and reckless. We don’t have time for this. Literally. _We. Don’t. Have. Time._ We have to find that clock, find Wyatt and Rufus and make it back to the lifeboat before their other selves leave.

She decides to go look for the clock (because there’s nobody else to do it), but goddammit Flynn, she might kill him.

She sneaks back into the house, slipping into the room unseen where she sees David Rittenhouse’s dead body lying in a pool of thickening blood. She has to hurry. Who knows when his bodyguards will be back to claim the body. Where is that clock? She looks around. Great, there are about 20 clocks in this room, ranging from small mantle clocks to tall, floor-standing, case clocks.

She picks up one clock, searching it for an opening or keyhole that would fit the Rittenhouse key. It would be nice if Flynn were here as he’s actually seen what the keyhole looks like. And the entry point is likely hidden, like it was in the first clock the key opened. She is definitely going to kill that man.

She jiggles all the knobs and gears on the clock, looking for any sign of movement. To her surprise, a small knob at the top of the clock slides away, revealing an opening in the exact shape of the key. Oh my god, she thinks, this is it. This is the clock!

She looks up, elated, relief washing over her, when by chance, she glances at another clock in front of her. Her face falls when she sees the same type of knob. She tentatively reaches out, pushing the knob to see if it moves. The knob slides over, revealing yet another keyhole, just like the first, also a perfect match for their key.

She moves to look at the next clock on the shelf, same thing, and the same with the next, and the next, and the one after that. Oh no! They all have the keyhole opening, every single one of them. Why didn’t she bring that damn key with her from 2018? She thought about it, but decided against it. Why did she do that? Shit.

She does the only thing she can think of next, pulls out her cell phone and starts snapping photos of every clock in the room. Hopefully one of these clocks is the one that they are looking for.

She hears footsteps outside the door and realizes they are getting closer, louder. Great! Somebody’s coming. She moves hastily towards the curtains and hides herself, covering her dress, wiping the sweat from her brow and trying to steady her breathing. Calm down, Lucy, she thinks. Breathe.

The door opens. She hears footsteps moving around, first to one end of the room, then to the next, as if the person maybe doesn’t know what they are looking for. Maybe it’s Flynn. She dares to peer out from a small crack in the curtain and sees, not Flynn, but rather John Rittenhouse standing by his father’s desk.

He has a bag in one hand, the other frantically stuffing things into it from the desk. He looks up towards her, as if he's heard a noise, and her heart quickens at the thought of him finding her. What would she even say, do? She stays still as a rock, not breathing, until she hears him go back to moving around the room. She breathes out a long, quiet sigh. Damn, that was close.  

She peers out again, catching a glimpse of Flynn out of the corner of her eye this time. There he is! He’s over near the door where John came in, peering through. He sees her, motioning for her to stay put, showing her his gun, probably to let her know he will protect her. Idiot man. She doesn’t need protection. What she needs is to know which clock they are looking for. He could have helped her with that, maybe, sort of, probably. But nooooo, he had to run off like the wildcard that he is. At least he didn’t kill the kid, she thinks. Yet.

She looks back over at John, frantically racking her brain for something she can do to stop him, to ask him about the clock, but how can she do that without making a mess of the future timeline?

It is then, to her disbelief, she sees John walk over to the bookcase near the fireplace and take down a small mantle mount clock, placing it in his bag. He takes down a second, slightly larger clock and puts that into a second bag, then heads towards the door.

He looks around the room one last time, glances at his dead father, then pushes the door open, peeks his head out, glimpses down the hall, and then, seeing nothing, leaves the way he came.

Lucy jumps out from behind the curtain as she sees Flynn rushing into the room from wherever he was hiding his giant, tree self. “Those were the clocks,” says Lucy, “the ones we’ve been looking for.”

“I know,” says Flynn. “I recognize the smaller one from the museum. What should we do?”

“I got a picture of it,” says Lucy, “with my phone. That will have to be enough.”

“We have to follow him, Lucy,” demands Flynn. “We have to know where he goes next. We need to find that clock in 2018.”

“We’re out of time, Flynn,” she counters, exasperated. “We have to get back to the lifeboat, collapse the timeline, before we lose our chance.”

She’s right. He knows she’s right. But dammit, they’re so close to solving this. They can’t let John Rittenhouse disappear. Again. They may never find him. Again.

She grabs him by his arm, dragging him out of the room behind her. “Let’s go Flynn. This is not up for debate. We’re going home.”

He follows her out, still conflicted, fighting every instinct he has to go after that brat. He’s nearly to the lifeboat, lost in thought, Lucy literally dragging him by the arm, before he realizes it’s done. He can see the lifeboat and the kid is probably long gone by now anyway. Shit.

Flynn sulks the whole way home, grumbling a few times in response to comments from the team. They head back to 2018 and he has no idea how they are going to find John Rittenhouse, or how they are going to find that clock again.

He pinches his eyes and shakes his head. He wishes he had never stolen that infernal Mothership in the first place. He’s first in line to blow that hunk of metal, and this one, off the face of the earth once they defeat Rittenhouse. _If_ they defeat Rittenhouse. If they don’t die first. Fuck.

\-----

After a hot shower and something to eat, Flynn has calmed down enough that he seeks out Lucy. His behavior on this trip was, well, he acted like a wild Gorilla throwing his anger around unapologetically, hurling poo at innocent bystanders.

He sees now that Lucy was right. They didn’t have time to find John, to figure out where he went next. Flynn was going to go find her now, apologize, use whatever groveling was necessary to get her to forgive him and then try to muster up any brain power he had left to help her figure out what they were going to do next.

He finds Lucy in the library, everyone else long since gone to bed after a long, brutal day. “Lucy,” he says softly, causing her to look up from her book, glance at him, then look down, going back to her reading.

Yep, she’s pissed.

“Lucy,” he continues. “I’m . . . I’m sorry about today.” That gets her to look up. He’s not big on saying I’m sorry, it still surprises her. She turns towards him, arms crossed, lips pursed, still clearly pissed, but at least willing to listen.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he says again. “I should have stayed with you and not ran off after John. I want you to know, I was never going to kill him. I know we want to take out Rittenhouse in 2018. If I killed John in the past, it would change too much here, now. I know that.”

“So why did you leave then?” asks Lucy, still irritated.

“I . . .” he stutters. “I wanted to make sure that I didn’t kill him, I mean that 1780 me didn’t kill him.” He’s looking down at his feet now, one-foot moving across the floor like he’s embarrassed, or hurt, in pain.

“I was so close to killing that child, Lucy, when we were there before. So close. You have no idea. You stopped me then, but . . . but I would have killed him. I had to make sure that didn’t happen, that you stopped me again.”

Lucy uncrosses her arms, her face softening. “Why didn’t you just tell me that, Flynn?”

“I hadn’t planned on it happening that way,” he says. “And then when I realized what I needed to do, there wasn’t time. So I ran off.”

“It must have been hard for you . . .” she offers, crossing the room and reaching out to touch his hand, wanting very much to stay mad at him but so run-through by all the drama they'd been through, and genuinely touched by his willingness to talk about his feelings, that she decides to just let go, to forgive. “It must have been hard to relive that moment again, to see yourself . . . “

“On the brink of making one of the worst decisions of my life,” he finishes her sentence for her. She nods.

“It was,” he continues. “But it was you Lucy, you were there, you kept me from making that awful choice. If I had killed him, there would have been no coming back from that, no hope for me, for my soul. You . . . you saved me, Lucy. Well, a piece of me, the only piece that was left.”

Lucy reaches for Flynn and pulls him into her arms, resting her head on his chest, him burying his face into her hair. “You’re worth saving,” she says, tightening her arms around him in reassurance. Sometimes letting go, forgiving, is better, she thinks.

He holds her tight, bending down more than he’s used to, and buries his head into her neck. She holds him like that for a while, in her arms. It’s too painfully tender for him to be held by her like this, but he can’t seem to pull himself away. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, minutes maybe, or hours. He never wants to let go, never wants her to stop holding him.

Finally, she pulls away, looks up at him, wiping a few tears from her eyes. “Do you want to see what I’ve been working on?”

He nods and she takes his hand, leading him over to the desk where she had been working. “I think I have a lead,” she says. “On where we might find John Rittenhouse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, kudos are like crack, aren't they?!?! Who knew! Thanks to all who left kudos. I'm humbled.
> 
> I wanted to drag out Flynn's existential crisis for a few more time jumps, out through the Nazis/Castle Valar at least. I wanted to have him come face to face with his guilt, push Lucy away because she deserves better (and all those other lies he tells himself). Then have them reconcile, her showing him her love isn't conditional. 
> 
> But I just couldn't do it. I'm such a wimp. If anyone needs to not suffer anymore, it's him. 
> 
> Yep, wimp.


	12. The Doc & the Clock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Lucy is a damn genius and finds where John Rittenhouse has been hiding in history. Jiya tries to explain the forbidden colors. And Lucy is reunited with the Doc.
> 
> Thank you lxghtwoodlxve for beta'ing this fic!!! <3

“So you think Heman Clark, the clockmaker we looked into back in 1863, might have actually been John Rittenhouse?” asks Flynn in wonder as he marvels at the brain power in his genius, doctor, historian girlfriend.

Wow, _she_ is his girlfriend. _He_ has a girlfriend. _This_ fierce creature is _his_ girlfriend. The thought hits him as if this is the first time he’s thought about it.

“All the clues seem to add up,” says Lucy, interrupting his thoughts. “John was maybe... 10? In 1780? When we first met him in New York? He was on the run, scared, and the only real skill he had, that we know of, was clockmaking. My guess is he kept making clocks after he left New York, especially given Rittenhouse's fixation on clocks.”

“There weren’t that many clockmakers around back then. Only 4 actually.” Lucy pulls up a map of 1780’s New York on her laptop. “There was Eli Terry in Northbury, Connecticut, which was here.”

She points to the map. “There was David Wood in Newburyport, Massachusetts, here,” pointing again, and then continuing. “Parker and Whipple in Meriden, Connecticut. Then Heman Clark in Plymouth Hollow, also in Connecticut.”

“So how do you know Heman is our guy?” asks Flynn.

“Well, for one, of all of these men, the historical records on Heman are the most perplexing. He has two different sets of birth records, two different towns he’s listed as living in, neither of them near each other, one of them died early in life and there’s very little information in the records after the death is reported to have happened.”

“So do you think John killed Heman and assumed his identity?” asks Flynn.

“Or Heman died and John just took over from there,” responds Lucy.

“And here we thought identity theft was a 21st century thing,” jokes Flynn.

“Heman also makes sense for other reasons,” continues Lucy, becoming progressively more animated, feeling as if she's at the cusp of solving a complex, byzantine puzzle.

“Heman trained under Eli Terry, as an apprentice. That makes sense given that John was so young and still hadn’t mastered the clockmaking art. He’d need more training, and who better to train with back then than famed clockmaker Eli Terry. Terry was also far enough from New York for John to start a new life, but not so far that it’s unreasonable to think John never made it there given the transportation capabilities of the time.”

“So Heman trains with Terry,” adds Flynn. “And John is there too. Then Heman dies and John assumes his identity . . . or something like that.”

“And then John, as Heman, relocates to Plymouth Hollow so nobody knows he’s changed his name,” finishes Lucy.

She clasps her hands and raises them to her lips, looking down, pacing back and forth a bit a little, deep in thought.  

“Think about it Flynn," she says, looking up, a satisfied expression starting to form on her face. "It’s just too much for all of this to be a coincidence. Heman’s date of birth lines up with John's age in 1780, Lu mentions Heman by name in the journal with a question mark next to it . . .”

“And,” says Denise, moving into the library from the doorway where she had been listening, a file in her hand, “hot off the presses, that clock you took a picture of, Lucy, the one John took with him when he fled? It looks nearly identical to this Curtis and Clark Shelf Clock on display right now at, none other than, the American History Museum in D.C. We just got this data back from our analysts.”

Lucy takes the file and looks inside and reads, ‘ _Curtis and Clark Shelf Clock, made in 1825, uses imported springs instead of falling weights to drive movement_ . . .’

“The clock that I opened didn’t have springs,” says Flynn, “it had weights.”

“And they look nearly identical,” says Lucy, her look of gratification increasing.

Flynn walks over to the mantle and pulls down the clock that Aaron Thomas gave Lucy back when they met him in 1863. “Lucy, Aaron Thomas said that Heman made this clock near the end of this life, but didn’t finish it. Look at this.”

Lucy walks over, reaching for the clock and examining it. Flynn reaches up, pushing a small knob on the clock off to the side, revealing a little, flawless keyhole.

“This looks just like a hole that a key, like the Rittenhouse key, might fit into,” says Flynn, looking at her intently.

“There is no doubt in my mind now that Heman was John,” says Lucy passionately, her face beaming now. “He has to be. Seth Thomas, Aaron’s father, trained under Heman, eventually taking over Heman’s business. Seth Thomas clocks are some of the most famous in the world today, exquisitely made, collectors’ items. It just makes sense, Flynn.”

“So, what do we do next?” asks Denise.

“We need to find that clock,” responds Lucy, “in 2018, now.”

“And now that we know who John was, we know where that clock was, and we can try to follow it through history to figure out where it is now,” adds Flynn, marveling at how they’ve become quite the team, sharing each other’s thoughts, ending each other’s sentences.

“Yes,” says Lucy, smiling brilliantly. “Exactly!”

\-----

“I’m fine, Rufus,” says Jiya walking into the kitchen, Rufus right behind her. “You don’t have to hover over me.”

“But I like hovering over you,” says Rufus. Jiya looks at him and smiles.

“The doctor says I’m fine, more than fine. I like you near me but this,” she points between her and Rufus at the 6 inches of space between them. “This is too close.”

Rufus looks down at the space between them, then looks back up at Jiya and takes a small step back, leaving about 12 inches between them now.

“Is this better?” he asks.

Jiya shakes her head, resigning herself to having lost this argument, kisses him on the cheek, then moves to sit down at the table. Rufus follows her.

“Hey Jiya,” says Lucy, who has been watching from the table for the last few minutes. “I won’t ask how you’re doing. I think Rufus has that covered.” Jiya smiles.

“You gave us quite a scare, you know?” adds Lucy. “With the seizure.”

“I know,” says Jiya, reflecting on how shitty she had felt after coming out of the seizure and hearing Rufus recount what had happened. “I scared myself, to be honest.”

“Don’t do that again, okay?” says Rufus, stroking Jiya’s hair, kissing her on the forehead.

“I’ll do my best,” replies Jiya.

Turning to Lucy, she continues. “When I was in the vision, I saw . . . I don’t know what I saw really. It looked like . . . like sound waves maybe . . . or the kind of waves, ripples, that you get when you throw a stone in the water . . . it's hard to describe. It's just everything was normal and then all of a sudden these waves were there, they were in the air and all around me, and they were moving," she adds, gesticulating, looking to the others who looked utterly confused, trying to understand, but failing miserably.

Jiya continues. “The waves were moving, reverberating off of each other, getting stronger, and then . . . all of a sudden, I could see all the colors in a different way. I mean, I could see the light waves of the colors . . . their wavelengths, their frequency, their size, their shape, their movement . . . it was like the waves that make up the color were radiating out of the actual color. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah,” says Lucy. “I mean sort of. I mean no. No."

Jiya sighs, takes a deep breath and tries again. “It’s like I would see the color green in a tree, but then I’d also see the light waves the color green makes radiating out of the tree in all directions. It was really amazing. And if the color was really bright, it would be a really intense, strong wave, that was shaking wildly, but if the color was weak, the wave would be small, and would hardly be moving.”

“I get it now. That makes more sense. You maybe should lead with that next time you explain it,” says Lucy smiling. “But what happened after that? After you saw the colors?”

“Well,” continues Jiya. “I saw the waves, then the colors got really strong, so many different colors, and then I was standing in a room with . . . well, in a room with Napoleon.”

Lucy’s jaw drops. “Napoleon?”

“Yeah, Napoleon. He was standing in a study or an office or something, and someone was painting his picture. And Emma was there.”

“Emma?” says Lucy in unrestrained surprise. “Rittenhouse Emma?”

“Yes,” says Jiya. “Then I woke up. I don’t remember anything after that . . . well, until I woke up in Rufus’ arms.”

Taking a step away from the kitchen wall he'd been leaning on, Flynn looks at Lucy, “Emma told me once that she met Napoleon. Do you think it was a memory of that?” he asks.

“Maybe,” says Lucy.

“Wait,” says Rufus. “Flynn, say that again!”

“Uh, okay. _Do you think Jiya’s vision was a memory of when Emma met Napoleon_ ,” says Flynn, emphatically, looking at Rufus like the man’s finally lost it, he’s officially off his rocker.

“That’s it!” exclaims Rufus.

“What?” says Jiya, looking at him eager for an explanation.

“Okay, okay, listen. See if you follow me. Your visions so far have been to the past that we were _going_ to travel to, right?” Jiya nods. “Each of those trips created a new timeline though, so you were seeing into the past of the new timeline.” Jiya looks at him and nods.

“It’s like when you saw me die in 1888, you were seeing into the next timeline we were going to go to, we were in timeline #25, but you saw to timeline #26,” Rufus continues. “What if this vision is seeing back to a past timeline?”

“Maybe that’s why it’s different?” adds Jiya, excited now as the concept sinks in. “Maybe it’s why the colors change? Maybe the forbidden colors are when I can see in the other direction, backwards? Backwards through time.”

“It makes total sense,” says Rufus, looking at Flynn, who looks like he's still trying to register all that mumbo jumbo about seeing colors. “I mean, scientifically, it makes sense,” Rufus continues, looking back to Jiya.

Jiya smiles at him, "I get it."

“If that’s true,” interjects Lucy. “Then now you know to avoid those visions, Jiya, Right?.”

“Right,” says Rufus. “Your recovery from _this_ vision took so much longer. You were way out of it. If you start to see the waves, you know to avoid them.”

“But if I can go backwards and see where we’re going, won’t that help us?” says Jiya.

“It’s too dangerous,” says Lucy.

“That seizure could’ve killed you,” adds Rufus, dejectedly. “I can’t lose you Jiya. It’s not safe. Promise me you’ll stay away from those colors. Please. Promise me.”

“Okay,” resigns Jiya. “I promise.” Rufus kisses her on her forehead, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Thank you.”

“Good, you’re all here,” says Denise, walking in with Wyatt and Connor. “We need to go over the details for the next missions.”

\-----

Lucy steps off the lifeboat, leaning back against it’s gears and sighs. “Man, we live weird lives,” she says. Rufus hops down next, looking over at Lucy.

“So . . . we didn’t get killed by Bonnie and Clyde . . . check. Saved some astronauts . . . check. Didn’t get any diseases, that I know of, stranded in 1754 . . . check. Thanks for that, by the way.” says Rufus, looking at Flynn.

“I was going to send someone back for you,” Flynn counters. “Eventually, maybe, probably,” trailing off his words at the end.

“Come on guys,” says Wyatt, “let’s get going. We need to get to D.C. and find the Doc.”

\-----

“I still think this is a terrible idea,” says Rufus, looking at Lucy.

“So do I,” says Flynn.

“Me three,” adds Wyatt, raising his hand.

“Do any of you have a better idea?” says Lucy poignantly. “I didn’t think so. Let’s do this.”

“Alright,” agrees Flynn reluctantly. “But be careful, do everything by the book, don’t change anything,” he stresses.

“I won’t,” she answers, kissing him on the cheek. “You be careful too. Try to stay out of your own way.”

“Yeah,” adds Wyatt smiling. “The Flynn here and now is batshit crazy.”

“Ha, ha,” says Flynn flatly. “Let’s go.”

“I hope they don’t kill each other,” says Rufus, as Flynn and Wyatt leave, Lucy looking at him with a _that-is-so-not-funny_ look on her face.

“I’m kidding. Sort of,” he says. “Are you ready to do this?”

“Yes. Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Okay then!” Rufus walks hurriedly up to 1972 Lucy, Lucy #6, who is standing outside the bar waiting for Rufus, or is it Kanye, to come back out. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, come on, this way, quickly,” he says, motioning for her to follow him.

Looking shocked and a bit confused, Lucy #6 follows Rufus around the corner. “What is it Rufus? What happened?”

Just as she rounds the corner, Lucy #26 steps out from behind some trash cans and touches Lucy #6, causing her to disappear. Disappear from time. She looks at Rufus, her Rufus, slightly stunned, still not used to seeing herself disappear into nowhere even if they've done it many, many times now. “That was easier than I thought it was going to be.”

“Yeah, well, what’s next is the hard part,” says Rufus. “Be careful, Lucy.” She nods and then walks back around the corner and takes the place of where Lucy #6 was just standing outside the bar. Rufus #6 comes out a few minutes later and takes Lucy’s arm.

“Let’s go, these guys are going to take us to the Doc,” he whispers, then pauses. “Wait, did you change clothes?” he asks, looking down at her outfit.

“Yeah,” says Lucy #26, trying to think fast on her feet. “I was . . . I was out here a long time and got bored, so I went shopping . . . over there.” She points to a nearby store.

Rufus shakes his head in disbelief as he takes her arm and leads her to the car mumbling something under his breath about dying and not being the best time for shopping, but whatever.

She has to be careful, really, really careful, try to say everything and do everything she did the last time they were here, try not to change anything . . . well . . . change much, that is.

“So, uh . . . how long have you been here,” says Lucy, looking around the Doc’s room.

“A couple days,” she replies. “I was staying at the Watergate but had to split. Some guys broke in there looking for me.”

“Rittenhouse, you mean,” says Lucy.

“What do you know about them?” demands the Doc, turning on her heels, looking terrified.

“Not much,” says Lucy. “I’m trying to get more info. Why are they after you?”

"Cause I left.”

“Left Rittenhouse?” says Lucy. “You’re telling me you’re a member?”

“I never joined, I was born into it,” says the Doc, sadness filling her face. “Most of us are. Going back generations.”

“Who is Rittenhouse? Please,” pleads Lucy. “Tell me. I might be mixed up with them too. And I’m scared. I’m . . . I’m really scared.”

“You should be,” says the Doc. “They control all of us. Look, I don’t know everything. No one does. One part never knows what the other parts are doing.”

“What was your part?” asks Lucy.

“I kept the roster,” says the Doc. “No one knows the full membership roll except for leadership and me.”

“So you were the bookkeeper?” probes Lucy.

“No books. Members names are never written down. It’s all up here,” she says, pointing to her head. “Every member since the founding in 1778.”

“My role is . . . um . . . to keep this weird clock,” says Lucy, knowing she’s going off script and hoping, praying, begging the universe, and every god out there, that this doesn’t change the timeline. “I’m . . . ah . . . I’m supposed to keep it hidden. It’s really old and apparently really important.”

“You must be part of the Cahill family then,” says the Doc. “The Cahills keep the clocks.”

“Yes, I am,” says Lucy. “I am a Cahill. And I am really scared. They said if I lose this clock, if something happens to it . . .”

“They’ll kill you,” says the Doc, finishing her sentence for her matter-of-factly. Lucy nods.

“That’s why I left. They want to kill me too,” continues the Doc.

“I don’t even know what this clock is for, or what I should do with it, or how to keep it safe.”

“I don’t know either,” says the Doc. “I know the Cahills keep the clocks, the Fords keep the key, and a lot of Cahills and Fords have ended up dead over the years for not doing their job protecting them.”

Lucy lets out an audible gasp.

“If I were you,” stresses the Doc. “I’d run. I don’t know why, but no good comes from watching over those clocks. Trust me.”

Lucy walks out of the room, closes the doors and leans back against them, pressing her fingers to her eyes trying to take it all in. The Cahill’s keep the clocks. Of course they do. They’re an old family, early members of Rittenhouse, descendants of David Rittenhouse himself she thinks. _Her_ family.

If the Cahill’s keep the clocks, then that means Benjamin Cahill must know where it is. Lucy sighs. Great, she thinks, I have to see my bastard of a father again. Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything hurts and I’m dying. 
> 
> We’ll look back on this fic one day and laugh. Or maybe cry. 
> 
> Must. Finish. This!!!
> 
> Why hello madness, my faithful writing friend.
> 
> 3 chapters to go or bust!


	13. Wild Lucy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where her Dad is a douche, but Lucy is brilliant.
> 
> Huh, spacetime does kind of look like a cup with straws.
> 
> Oh crap, it's Rittenhouse! The jig is almost up!
> 
> And some more utterly shameless smut. I think I may need an intervention!

Benjamin Cahill is a slimy, slithery piece of work. If his pompous, _nothing-can-touch-me_ , shit-eating grin weren’t enough to make Lucy throw up in her mouth a little every time she saw him, his oily, hollow _father of the year_ act would step in and do the trick.

Lucy would literally rather be visiting anyone else at the Downtown County Jail, where Cahill managed to get himself sent, probably using his disreputable Rittenhouse contacts, while he still awaits trial.

That includes visiting that nude activist they just arrested again for his recent march out front of police headquarters protesting the Anti-wiener Bill.

And come to think of it, the Golden State Killer may even be awaiting trial here. Maybe it’s not too late to visit him instead.

Thankfully, Denise and Flynn came with her. She’s grateful for their expertise in interviewing and interrogation, but also for their moral support. And if nothing else, if all else fails, maybe she can piss Cahill off by letting him know she’s sleeping with Flynn. There’s always that. That should wipe that evil smirk off his face.

Flynn reaches in front of her and opens the door to the private interrogation room Denise managed to secure for them. There, cuffed to the table, leaning back in his metal chair with his legs crossed, calm and relaxed, as if he were hanging out at the country club waiting for his drink to arrive, sits Ben Cahill. Seeing Lucy, his signature vile grin spreads across his face.

“Ah, Lucy, to what do I owe this pleasure?” he says with slippery affection.

Lucy enters the room, her nerves getting the better of her, fumbling with the gloves she’d been wearing, then dropping her hands to her side and looking down at her feet.

She feels Flynn touch the small of her back, rubbing small circles with his fingers, letting her know he is there. When she turns back to look at him, she sees his amazing, dashingly smug yet supportive smile and a look in his eyes that can only be interpreted as _go get ‘em tiger_.

That’s all she needs. She takes a deep breath, smiles steely back at Flynn, then turns on her father, places her gloves on the table and says, “cut the crap, Cahill, we’re here to make a deal.”

\-----

“How’d it go,” asks Jiya, as Lucy, Flynn and Denise return to their home base.

“She was masterful,” says Flynn, his face beaming with pride. “Cahill didn’t know what hit him!”

“I may need to bring her in on all my future interrogations,” adds Denise.

“So, what happened,” asked Wyatt and Rufus in unison, walking over.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” says Lucy, self-conscious.

“Not that big of a deal,” says Flynn. “Not that big of a deal! You only single-handedly got the information we needed out of an experienced, hardened crime boss. It was incredible,” he gushes.

“Cahill wasn’t saying a word,” continues Denise, feeding off Flynn’s excitement. “He sat there looking so smug and untouchable as we questioned him about Rittenhouse, about his involvement, about the clock. Then Lucy stepped in and started describing the clock to him in perfect detail.” Denise motions to Lucy to elaborate.

“Brass timer and striker, white-painted metal dial with Roman numerals, mahogany case with front paw feet, an ivory keyhole escutcheon,” says Lucy as if anyone could describe the clock in that level of compelling detail.

“I was certain I saw Cahill’s face visibly twitch when she mentioned the keyhole,” laughs Denise.

“Oh, he tried to recover quickly,” says Flynn using his hands to animate his words. “But then Lucy dropped the next bomb. She mentioned the key, the inscription, how it led her to Benedict Arnold as a founding member of Rittenhouse.”

“Cahill’s face definitely twitched on that one,” Denise points out. “He was afraid, genuinely afraid of us getting our hands on those clocks.”

“He still wouldn’t tell us where the clock was though,” says Lucy, actively joining the conversation.

“But he didn’t have to,” continues Denise. “While Lucy was grilling him, talking about how Rittenhouse is family, their family, and what would her half-brother think about all of this, she immediately realized, we already knew where the clock was. It was at the Cahill home, with her half-brother, Jack."

"When Lucy said, 'the Cahills keep the clocks,' Cahill shit his pants,” laughs Flynn. “He went white in the face, absolutely confirming Lucy’s hunch, and he looked as if he finally, _finally_ realized that this beautiful woman’s stubborn tenacity is going to be the key to his downfall, Rittenhouse’s downfall.” Flynn leaned over and kissed Lucy on the side of her head, beaming with boyish pride in her.

“It did feel rather good to see him squirm,” says Lucy, a small gratified smile turning up at one corner, of her mouth. She really does need to learn to take a compliment.

“I’ve already got the warrant to get the clock,” says Denise, just as a loud siren began blaring over the loudspeakers.

“Shit, Rittenhouse has jumped again,” says Denise.

\-----

Gathered around the computer console where Mason is standing, Flynn leans over to Lucy, whispering in her ear “I wonder which asshole brought back that siren. I hate that thing.”

Lucy shrugs, then nods in agreement. For fuck’s sake, it’s bad enough when Rittenhouse jumps, like they really need a screaming alarm to jolt them out of whatever miniscule calm they had to remind them, in case they forgot, that Rittenhouse has a time machine and is destroying history unchecked at present.

“I’m so glad I was able to get the siren back online,” says Mason, Lucy and Flynn looking at each other utterly unsurprised, both thinking they may have to disable that damn thing later, or in Flynn’s case, shoot it.

“Where have they gone?” asks Denise calmly.

“They jumped to 1888 Chinatown,” says Mason, looking grave.

“That can’t be a coincidence,” says Flynn, eyebrow raised.

“No, it can’t,” agrees Denise. “Do you think they’ve figured out we can jump to past timelines?”

“Maybe, let’s check,” says Jiya, pushing Mason out of the way, pressing a few keys on the monitor to bring up a new screen. “We’ve found a way to visualize spacetime, with the help of the manual Lu and Wy left, the one from the future.”

Jiya points to the large computer screen, “see, here, this giant open-ended cylinder, this is spacetime, and each of these lines inside the cylinder are a timeline.”

“Hm,” says Lucy surprised, “it really is kind of like a cup with straws in it.”

“Right,” continues Jiya. “Look here. I think Rittenhouse made a new jump, to a new timeline. You can tell because look, this line right here, it’s still faint, still forming. If we understand the manual correctly, that’s the new timeline, it will get brighter as it forms.”

“So, what you’re saying,” asks Denise, “is we can tell if they go to a new timeline versus an old one?” Jiya nods.

“So, this would be timeline #29 for them,” continues Rufus. “Flag that Jiya, so we know.” Jiya begins typing into the computer, labeling that timeline with its jump number, geographical location and year the time tunnel led to.”

“We think this is us, #26,” continues Rufus, pointing to the brightest line on the screen, running almost perfectly parallel to the cylinder walls and located nearest to the mid-line of the pipe-shaped configuration. “The manual provides a bunch of mathematical proofs that basically support the theory that there can only be one true timeline. Otherwise, the forces that hold timelines in place get out of whack."

A timeline can only be stable if it is located at the absolute center of the cylinder,” he continues, pointing to their timeline, “running parallel to infinity in either direction, you know, basically running towards the open ends of the cylinder.”

He looks up, glad to see the other's faces reflecting understanding. Then, all of sudden, Rufus startles, jumping into the air when, yet again, the damn siren goes off.

“Where did they jump this time?” asks Lucy.

“South Carolina 1863,” says Jiya, typing frantically. “Another new timeline, timeline #30.”

“Now that is definitely not a coincidence,” says Flynn knowingly. “They’ve jumped to two locations we’ve previously been to. They’re figuring this all out.”

“We still have like 4 more timelines to collapse,” says Lucy nervously.

“Then you better get going,” urges Denise, shooing them away from the console toward the lifeboat. I’ll get the clock and whatever is in it. Mason and Jiya, stall Emma if you can. Lucy, you guys collapse those timelines. And let’s all pray we have some time before Rittenhouse figures this all out and starts jumping to the past with us.”

\-----

Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut in 1863 had been a been a small, quiet town, with a short main street, wooden store fronts, quaint Colonial, half-acre homes on the outskirts, and a central church at the town epicenter. Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut in 1836, was not like that.

Rather than grouping together in an early town setting, Lucy was reminded that families in 1836 often lived and worked on large, multi-acre farms that contained the family home. The homes looked more like a giant wood box with a roof than the elegant pitched-roof, gabled homes they saw the last time they were here. Definitely less small town and more aggregation of farms over a wide radius.

“Do you think the house we met Aaron Clark in 27 years ago exists here?” asks Flynn as they walk the dirt road into what will be town one day.

It’s mid-fall, gorgeous tall trees with leaves of lovely shades of red, green and yellow line the road, with many beginning to fall to the ground. It’s cool, but they found appropriate clothing to keep them warm enough.

“I hope so,” responds Lucy, looking around. “Otherwise we’re going to have a hell of a time trying to find Heman Clark, aka: John Rittenhouse in this place.”

“So, he’d be about what now?” asks Flynn, “66-years-old?”

“Yeah, if he’s still alive. We have to find out. And we have to do it without letting him see us. I can’t imagine he’s forgotten our faces. Let’s learn what we can and then get back to Rufus and Wyatt at the Alamo as soon as possible.” Flynn nods in agreement.

They sneak up to the old wooden house at the end of the lane, certain it must be the same house, or the original version of it anyway, from their trip here in 1863. They can hear mechanical tinkering from inside, a good sign. Peering into a small, dirty window on the secluded forest side of the workshop, Flynn sees a white male, maybe 20 years old, working, assembling a clock.

“It’s a young man,” whispers Flynn, bending down to Lucy, who can’t reach the window and is providing lookout, leaning on the side of the workshop. “He’s making a clock. I think we’re in the right place. Stay here. I’m going to scout out the farm. I’ll be right back.”

Ducking behind a woodpile nervously, Lucy finally sees Flynn headed back her way. Thank god he didn’t take too long. “We are definitely in the right place,” he says breathily, taking her by the arm and leading her back into the forest.

“I made it to the main house. There are numerous armed guards stationed around the property, less of the war militia type and more of the personal body guard type. I heard them mention Heman by name. My bet is Heman is here, and keeps them around for protection. If we want to get any closer, we’ll have to wait until nightfall.”

Lucy nods. “We can wait things out in any of the abandoned houses we passed on the way in.” Flynn nods, gesturing for her to lead the way.

They chose a place off the beaten path, nearly a mile away from Rittenhouse’s, or any other farm. Flynn starts a fire while Lucy looks around the home, which looks like it was left before the owners were able to pack up everything.

“Why are all these homes empty?” asks Flynn, poking at the small flames starting to appear.

“Well, it’s not too long before the Panic of 1837 happens, and the whole country goes into a major recession,” says Lucy. “Families had to sell their homes, and everything in them to survive.” Lucy points down at an ornate, upholstered fainting couch with a raised back on one end, and no back on the other.

“Up until a few months ago, the economy was booming.” Lucy grunts, pushing with all her might to move the couch towards the fireplace. “But right now, the Bank of England is getting ready to raise interest rates due to a bad harvest and low reserves.” She stops, motioning to Flynn to help her move the solid wood furnishing.

She watches incredulously as he begins to push it over with ease, but continues. “The New York banks will follow suit, and due to something they later call the Specie Circular, or peculiar circumstances, demand will drop. It’s already dropping actually.”

She sits down on the couch, warming her hands on the fire, which is giving off heat now. “Demand for cotton fell the most, families couldn’t make ends meet, so they left. Headed West mostly. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if all this was bought up by Heman Clark's estate,” she adds, pointing around the room, widening her point to include the region outdoors too.

“Yeah, by the looks of his home, I don’t think he’s feeling the effects of any impending recession,” says Flynn, motioning her to move over so he can sit too.

He takes off his coat, laying it on the back of the couch behind him, and looks over at her with soft-eyed adoration.

“What?” she asks, catching his eye, then looking down at herself as if trying to see what he’s looking at.

“Nothing, it’s just I love it when you give me one of your history lessons. You’re so smart.”

She gives a breathless laugh. “Yes, well misspent youth will get you that. My nose was always in books, learning the facts, never going out, being totally boring.”

“On the contrary,” says Flynn, taking her hand. “You are not boring at all. In fact, I find you very . . .” he shifts closer to her on the couch, “very . . . sexy.”

“Really,” she says, feigning disinterest in his advances, looking down at her hands.

“Yes, really,” he says, placing two fingers under her chin and guiding her head to look at him. “And I happen to know, for a fact, that you find me sexy too.”

“Huh. That’s awfully overconfident of you,” she says, turning her body to face him. “And how is it that you know this for, as you say, a fact?”

“Because,” he says, “when I do this . . .” he plants a soft kiss on her exposed neck, pulling back slowly and looking at her. “Or this . . .” he places another kiss on the other side of her neck, “your cheeks turn a lovely shade of pink.”

Damn her traitorous cheeks.

“And the more I kiss you” he plants another kiss on her neck, then another, “the pinker, and _hotter_ , they become.” He’s looking at her with that self-satisfied smile of his, a sparkle in his eyes.

She could say something clever, like how shades of skin are not scientific proof of fact, and correlation does not causation make. She decides instead to grab the back of his head and pull him into a deep, intense kiss that makes his stomach drop.

Whatever shade of pink she might have been, she’s confident she’s gone to full-fledged red as she becomes breathless, driving herself deeper and deeper into his mouth. “Flynn,” she murmurs, her breath catching as he moves to her neck, planting a trail of kisses from her ear down to her collarbone.

Something inside Lucy snaps and she completely comes undone. She pushes him back onto the couch and moves herself on top of him, pulling at his shirt buttons to get them undone, straining to expose his neck, his chest so she can get her mouth on them.

“Lucy,” he says in a low, breathless, shaky voice, as she gets his shirt open enough and sets her mouth to kissing every inch of his neck, his chest, his arms, his stomach.

She reaches for his belt, undoing it with trembling, uncooperative hands and has the zipper down and his hard cock in her hand before Flynn can even think about reacting. “Lucy . . . what are you doing?” he asks, his eyes almost rolling to the back of his head at her touch.

“Something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time,” she responds, excitement rushing through her as she bends down and takes him whole inside her mouth, moistening him from tip to base and back again.

Flynn doesn’t know what hit him. One minute he was in control, telling Lucy she was sexy, causing her to react to his soft, lingering kisses. The next thing he knew he was on his back, Lucy on top of him, wildly pulling his shirt open and trailing her mouth hungrily up and down his bared skin.

His brain exploded. Before he even knew what was happening, Lucy had him in her hand, running her mouth up and down the length of him. When had she taken over control of his ability to think, to breathe, to move? _Fuck._

Lucy continues her work, exploring every inch of him. All Flynn can see is a hot, growing, blinding, brightness as Lucy continues to suck on him. His heart racing, his breath a pant, Flynn draws closer and closer to orgasm. God this woman will be the death of him.

Just before he can’t take it anymore, Lucy begins to slow her pace, bringing him slightly off the edge, slowly providing sensation but allowing him to breathe a little. She shifts, sliding up his body, kissing his chest again as she moves upward, finding her way to his lips and then plunging her tongue intensely into his mouth, kissing him deep, rough, with all the fire in her soul.

Flynn, somewhat regaining his faculties, reaches up, his hand behind her head, pushing her deeper into the kiss, if that’s even possible. Then he sits up, and holding onto her, flips her over so that her back is on the couch now. He looks down at her, a sinister smile on his face. “My turn,” he says  

He smashes in, going straight for her neck. He knows is a tender spot for her so he trails sensual, electrifying kisses from her neck up to the back of her ear. Lucy purrs. She loves to be kissed behind the ear.

He balances himself above her and deftly begins to unbutton the top of her dress to expose her breasts. He kisses her teasingly at first, then erotically, bringing her nipples between his teeth as they harden. Lucy moans with his touches, whimpering a little as he moves across her nipples again, bucking her hips up into him.

He moves down, putting his knees on the floor, sliding his hands up her skirts, her soft thighs so warm against his large, outspread hands. He finds her underwear and pulls them off, then, without hesitation, plunges his tongue into her, causing her to breathlessly gasp his name.

To say Garcia Flynn could make a woman feel good is an understatement. More like scream out his name, over and over again, which Lucy was almost doing. The feel of his tongue deep inside her, plunging in and out, then moving to flick over her clit, fastening on to it, sucking it, clasping on like a force was pulling his mouth in to become irrevocably attached, it is mind wrecking.

He sucks harder and harder, her hips bucking uncontrollably now, Flynn using his hands to keep hold of them so his mouth can stay in perfect, glorious position. He moves two fingers inside of her and curls them upward. She can’t hold on any longer and comes, oh does she come, moaning loudly as the orgasm takes her whole body, causing her to shudder and spasm into his mouth, every sinew of her in a stiff, earth shattering tremor.

Breathing heavily, she slowly comes back down, a soft, blissful smile on her face.

She opens her eyes, and sees Flynn looking down at her in awe, a worshipful look on his face. She hazily reaches down and touches him, still feeling wobbly from her climax, and feels his throbbing hard cock. They are so not done yet. She guides him towards her entrance and he pushes into her slowly, filling her to her deep, letting out a long, deep groan of his own.

At first, he’s not moving, just taking in the sensation of being inside her, her folds wrapped warm and tight around him. Then he begins twisting his hips upward, setting a slow, gentle pace. God, she can’t get enough of him, his eyes black with desire as he looks at her, panting in want. She reaches around him, hands on his back, and pushes his hips deeper into her, sighing his name again, “Flynn.” God he never grows tired of hearing her say that.

That’s all the signal he needs. His pace quickens, as he plunges his cock into her in fast, penetrating bursts, deeper, harder, more powerful, building and building until he finally falls over the edge, coming inside her, exhaling her name this time, “Lucy,” with a slight whimper.

Breathless, spent, resting his forehead on her chest as he supports his weight over her, still inside her, Flynn’s brain tries to reengage. Holy fuck. Lucy is a wild animal when it comes to sex, he thinks. He had no idea. Okay, well he may have had some idea, but _wow_. Holy shit.

He shifts them so he’s sitting on the couch now, leaning back, her head resting on his chest, both of them breathing almost normal now. Lucy giggles. “That was, um, fun,” she says, not looking at him, as if she herself is also realizing that she can be rather wild.

Flynn laughs. “Yes, that was VERY fun."

"It was good, wasn't it?" she asks, looking up at him coyly.

"Well, yes, it was good," says Flynn slyly, "but you know, we should keep doing that." He kisses her sensually on her lips for along moment, then looks at her again. "Practice makes perfect and all that," he adds, a devilish smile on his face. He kisses her again, lingering for a long time, pulling her in as close as he can.

"I love you, Lucy,” he murmurs into her hair, placing a soft kiss there.

“I love you too, Garcia,” she whispers, nuzzling in.

They stay there like that for a while, until dark starts to fall, Lucy drifting in and out of a soft sleep as Flynn strokes her hair and watches the fire die down. He still can’t believe she’s here, in his arms, letting him hold her, touch her, make love to her.

Lucy stirs, shifting up and placing a soft kiss on his chin. “Is it dark yet?” she asks, eyes still closed.

“Yes. We should go soon.”

She frowns. “Do we have to? Can we just stay here? This is nice,” she hums.

He agrees. This is nice. “Sleep for a little longer my love,” he says, pulling his coat over her to warm her. Just a little longer before they have to go, but before that, just a few more stolen moments to hold this woman he loves close to him. He never wants to let go.

\-----

Lucy sighs as they leave the comfort of the abandoned home, and Flynn’s arms, and head down the road to the Rittenhouse estate. Flynn had wanted to go alone, come back for her after he gathered the intel they were hoping for, but she refused. The last thing they need is to be separated and she sure as hell isn’t going to sit at home, even if it’s someone else’s home, wondering, worrying where her solider is and if he’s okay. That’s not her.

They managed to sneak onto the property easily enough, making it to the main house without being seen. By the time they reach the home, most of the lights are off, with the exception of a few. Men would often retire after dinner to their study and, at the very least, they are hoping to get a good look at Heman Clark, see if he really is the John Rittenhouse they met nearly 50 years ago. Hopefully they can tell.

Thankfully, luck is on their side and they find the study on the north side of the house, a window cracked slightly open, where they hear faint mechanical tinkering and men’s voices. Lucy and Flynn crouch under the window, listening intently, as Flynn slowly slides up, peering cautiously into the window, seeing an older man with his back to him and the younger man from earlier today sitting across from him, fiddling with a small clock.

“Look here, Father,” says the younger man. “These new imported springs give way much more readily and can completely replace the need for falling weights in the clocks we make. See.” He shows the clock to the older man.

“Yes, yes, I see Davidson,” says his Father. “The older springs were much too rigid, these are more elastic. Well done. Let’s place the order immediately.”

“Yes, Father,” answers the young man. “Will we order these under the Clark accounts or the Rittenhouse accounts, Father?”

Lucy and Flynn look at each other in shock, then listen in more closely, not wanting to miss a thing.

“Now Davidson, I’ve told you before,” says the man admonishingly, “all the clock parts are ordered under Heman Clark. Only very special things are purchased with the Rittenhouse accounts. You must learn this if you’re to take over for me one day.”

“Yes, Father,” says the boy, hanging his head.

“Don’t worry son, you’ll learn,” he adds, motioning for his son to run along and place the order.

Flynn slides up to peer into the window again, and motions Lucy to take a look as well. Slowly, being as quiet as she can, she inches up, peeking through a small corner of the glass, focusing in across the room where the boy has just left and the father is closing the study door. As he turns around and walks back towards them, she sees the unmistakable face of John Rittenhouse. He looks just like his father.

They duck back down, staring at each other wide-eyed, full of shock. Flynn motions her to leave the way they came. When they’re a good distance away, Lucy turns towards Flynn. “Did you see that? He looked exactly like his father.”

“I thought it was David Rittenhouse himself for half a second,” says Flynn with revulsion. “That’s his son, Davidson. And they’re Rittenhouse.”

“We know without a doubt now, Flynn. And we know Davidson is being groomed to take over. Let’s get back and tell the others.”

\-----

After picking up Wyatt and Rufus at the Alamo and dispatching their #5 selves, they all jump back to 2018 to collapse the timeline and quickly fill in the others on what they learned.

“So, we know without a doubt that John became Heman and he continued his role in Rittenhouse,” says Denise. “Good work guys.”

“Any other jumps by Rittenhouse?” asks Flynn.

“No,” says Connor. “And we don’t have the clock yet either. You haven’t actually been gone that long in this timeline,” he continues, scratching behind his ear. “As you know, the hole you jump through brings you back close to the time when you left. Good news, I suppose, as we race against the clock.”

“Great, well let’s get done with the rest of the trips,” says Lucy.

“1944 first,” says Denise, handing Rufus a piece of paper. “While Wyatt keeps an eye on the #4’s and tries not to be seen by Nazis, you three jump to DC and see what you can find out about the Cahill’s. Ethan Cahill should be about 20 years old, find out about his family.”

“We need to jump to 1944 Plymouth Hollow too,” adds Lucy, looking at Denise determined. “We have a hunch that John Rittenhouse owned a bunch of property in that area at one time.”

“We never found any Rittenhouse property in that area,” says Denise, looking skeptical.

“Exactly,” says Flynn. “It would be off the grid, perhaps under a different name.”

“Alright,” she agrees. “But don’t be late with your rendezvous with Wyatt.

“Great,” says Rufus. “Then Atomic City, right? 1962.”

“Yes,” answers Lucy. “Same plan. Get in, jump to DC and Plymouth Hollow, collect as much intel on the Rittenhouse lineages we can, get out. Benjamin Cahill should be about 10 years old then,” she adds, with a slight shutter. She still can’t stand that creep.

“Then to 1865,” says Flynn, somberly, looking down at his feet. “Lincoln.” They all turn to look at him, but he keeps his eyes down.

“We don’t get a do over here, people,” says Denise, looking to Flynn with sympathy, finally meeting his eyes. “As much as we all might like one, for so many things, we need to keep our eye on the ball. Taking down Rittenhouse for good.” Flynn nods, seeing a glimmer of forgiveness for him in Denise that he hasn’t seen before.

“We know what to do,” says Lucy, heading towards the lifeboat, motioning the others to follow. “Let’s hope we can do it before Emma finds us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for leaving kudos! So grateful. :)
> 
> So many typos. Doh! God I don’t even see them half the time. Sorry.


	14. The Emma Dilemma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Rittenhouse and Emma really suck.

“Does anyone even know what day it is?” asks Rufus, sliding out of the lifeboat, exhausted, wondering when this insanity is going to end.

“What?” says Flynn incredulously. “Everything we’ve been through, Nazis, atomic weapons, the civil war, Rittenhouse, and you’re asking what day it is?”

“Yeah. I wanted a moment of normalcy for like once second, Flynn. Because our lives are so bat shit crazy. But thanks for ruining it, man.”

“Anytime,” says Flynn sarcastically, with an _at your service_ tip of his head.

“So, you saw Emma then?” asks Denise, overhearing.

“Yep,” replies Lucy tersely, “she was there.”

“Any sign of Carol or Nicholas Keynes?” Lucy shakes her head no.

“What was Emma doing?” asks Connor, realizing this was probably a dumb question as soon as he asked it.

“Oh, you know,” interjects Wyatt with a shrug, “the usual. Trying to kill us.” Yep, dumb question.

“She showed up near the end of the trip,” continues Flynn, being more serious than the others for a change. He guesses since everyone else is being sulky and smart-assy, he’d go ahead and be serious, take one for the team.

“We finished our side-trips and were back in DC just after Lincoln was . . . uh . . . just before we needed to erase our other selves,” Flynn continues. “I knew we were being followed back to the Lifeboat so broke off from the group so they could keep on task and meet up with their 1865 selves.”

“I circled back and came across Emma just in time,” he looks down briefly, “just in time to see her witness the 1865s vanish into thin air.”

“What?” exclaims Denise. “She saw you dispatch your other selves? Shit. She knows. What happened next?”

“I fired a couple of shots, but missed,” responds Flynn, clearly disappointed that he didn’t kill her. “She was too far away. I chased her to the Mothership but didn’t get to her in time.”

“So, she’s back here now then?” probes Denise, looking at Connor.

“No, it looks as though she may be back in her timeline #30, where she jumped from,” says Connor. “But I think it’s safe to assume that because we collapsed the timeline, Emma #26, here in our timeline, knows now too.”

Denise motions the group to gather around the table. “Okay, we have to act fast then.”

“But we still need to collapse the Hindenburg timeline,” says Jiya.

Denise nods. “We’ll get to that. But first, we retrieved the clock from Cahill's place.”

“Oh my god,” says Lucy, finally coming out of her irritation at Emma learning the truth. How did she figure it out so damn fast anyway? “Did you open it?”

“Yes, here’s the scroll that was inside. Or I should say scrolls. There are three.”

Lucy, Flynn and Wyatt each take a scroll, which are a bit larger than the previous one, and begin to unroll them. Denise continues. “These scrolls basically detail the members of Rittenhouse dating back to the founding in 1778.”

“Wait, what?” says Rufus. “That’s impossible. The Doc said they never wrote anything down.”

“Well somebody did,” says Denise. “And it’s all in there. Even you Lucy.”

“What? Me?”

Denise steps over, searches the three scrolls for what she’s looking for, then points to a spot on the scroll in Lucy’s hands. “Right here,” she says. “Lucy Preston, daughter of Benjamin Cahill and Carol Preston. Engaged to Noah Sparks, also of reputable Rittenhouse lineage. The scrolls detail the lineage of the Rittenhouse bloodline, going all the way back to the founding.”

Lucy looks at the scroll first with shock, then with anger. “Unbelievable. They even have a place holder for our future children.”

“There’s more,” says Denise softly. “David Rittenhouse gives birth to John, and John has a son, Davidson. That’s the start of the line. Davidson had a daughter, who married a Cahill. You are a direct descendant of David Rittenhouse.”

“But that’s only half your line,” continues Denise, looking at Lucy, who has a _fuck my life_ look on her face. “Rittenhouse partnered with another man, a man named Harvey Wadsworth. Together they founded Rittenhouse. We can trace the Wadsworth line out to Nicholas Keynes, then Carol Preston.”

“So, I’m the descendant of both lines of Rittenhouse founders?”

“That’s right,” says Denise sadly.

Lucy looks to Denise, knowing how things worked back in the 1700’s, knowing what was coming next. “Let me guess, there’s a fair amount of early intermarriage between the families. Am I right?” Denise nods. “No wonder my entire family is crazy,” says Lucy mockingly, almost under her breath. “They’re all inbred.”

“Well, at least for the first 100 years or so,” offers Denise. “By the mid-1800’s they’d stopped that practice for the most part.”

“Which is why you’re not _that_ crazy,” says Rufus, boldly at first, until he realizes Lucy is glaring at him. “I mean you’re not crazy. Not at all crazy. You know, because you’re not inbred,” he offers, backtracking. Lucy is not amused.

“They kept track of the bloodlines very carefully,” says Denise. “It’s where all the power and wealth is concentrated. The Rittenhouses, the Wadsworths, then eventually the Fords, Lindberghs, Charvets, and so on.”

“What about Edison and Morgan,” says Flynn, who had been listening quietly, continually looking over at Lucy to make sure she is okay. He’d step in the moment she needed him by her side. “I thought they were Rittenhouse too.”

“Yes, minor players though,” answers Denise. “Not blood.”

“If you look back at the data we’ve collected so far,” interrupts Connor. “Blood relatives always pulled the strings, but minor players were integral to executing the plans, advancing the mission, and so on and so forth.”

Connor gathers some papers off the desk and holds them up. “With the intel we have from Ethan Cahill’s safe house, the photos you took from the Rittenhouse summit, the cell phone photos you took of archived records from the past, and the family tree in this clock, we have mountains more information than we had before.”

Connor puts the stack of papers down, and begins typing on the computer. “In fact, the information you brought in about John becoming Heman Clark was crucial Lucy. That’s not listed anywhere in the lineage, and Davidson is listed with the last name Rittenhouse, not Clark. Knowing that John became Clark has allowed us to track that entire line into the present day.”

“Yes,” says Denise, “and my guess is that the intel you brought back from these last few trips, will only help us to identify more minor players. We’ve already started getting warrants for arrests for many of the folks we missed the first time around.”

“But how can you possibly know that?” demands Lucy, turning on her heels, slapping a hand angrily on the table. “How can you know that you’ll get everyone this time? Rittenhouse has always found a way to persist. Every time we think we kill it, it rises again from the ashes.”

“Because this time,” says Denise, “we know every name the assets are listed under. Bank accounts, properties, investments, all of it, and all the way back to the founding. We have what we need to cut Rittenhouse off at the head of the snake . . . its checkbook.”

“All your efforts, Lucy, all of you,” says Denise pointing to the group, “have allowed us to collect this information through history, through time, to build the puzzle, from Benedict, to Rittenhouse, to now, to pull it all together so we see the big picture. This time, we’re going to get them all.”

“And what about Emma?” asks Lucy, still reeling in disbelief of all she’s heard. “How do we find her?”

“We were able to trace the lineage back to a group of Rittenhouse properties in Plymouth Hollow, Connecticut, just as you suspected Lucy,” says Denise. “Surveillance shows Emma entering one of the properties four hours ago, and she hasn’t left.”

Denise looks to Flynn and Wyatt. “A TAC team is assembled and standing-by. Thought you two might like to come along.”

“Wait,” says Flynn, looking back and forth from Denise to Wyatt hopefully. “Do I get to kill Emma?”

“Yes,” says Denise. “Shoot to kill.”

Flynn smiles like its Christmas morning and he’s just been given the best present ever.

\-----

“What the hell happened?” asks Lucy, running up to the hospital Emergency Room where Flynn and Wyatt are waiting.

“Denise was shot,” says Wyatt, Lucy looking at them with a devastated look on her face.

“She took a bullet for me,” says Flynn quietly.

Lucy can’t believe what she just heard. Denise? Took a bullet for _Flynn_? Did she hear that right? “She what?”

Flynn looks just as stunned as Lucy. “I had Emma in my sights, but there was a Rittenhouse agent lying in wait. Denise pushed me out of the way. She saved my life.”

“Is she going to be okay?” asks Lucy thinking about what things would be like without Denise. How could they possibly go on without her? Oh my god, she has to be okay.

“We don’t know yet,” says Wyatt grimly. “It’s pretty serious. She lost a lot of blood.”

This is not good. Shit. If there is one member of the team that they need, it’s Denise. She can’t die now. Lucy is so sick of Emma . . . wait, Emma. “What happened to Emma?” she asks.

“She got away,” says Wyatt, looking down. “She jumped in the Mothership and took off.”

Lucy feels sick. Flynn walks over to her and places a hand on her arm. He knows this must be hard for Lucy. Denise is, well, a pain, but she’s sort of like a mother to Lucy now. To them all really. Losing her would deal a huge blow. “I managed to shoot Emma in the arm.” Well that’s promising Lucy thinks. “And she’s on the run now, alone, it’s just her. We got everyone else. She won’t make it far.”

Lucy looks up at him, tears starting to form in her eyes. Flynn puts his arm around her and pulls her in. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Denise is a fighter. She’ll make it.”

\-----

Lucy can’t sleep. She can’t get comfortable. And she’s had so much hospital coffee at this point she’s going to be cracked out on caffeine for at least two days. Her feet hurt too. She paced the entire 6 hours Denise was in surgery. She couldn’t sit still. She had to be moving. They got the bullet out and the doctors said she did well. They took her to recovery an hour ago and now she needs to wake up. Please Denise, wake up. She’ll just keep pacing until then.

“You’re going to pace a hole in the floor there,” says Flynn, looking up at her from his chair. “And you can’t possibly bite that nail down any further. Maybe you should stop trying?”

She has to agree that her nail is pretty much shot at this point. But the floor, the floor is fine. The floor can take it. Who gives a shit about the floor? Turning on her heels she looks at Flynn, “This is making me crazy. I can’t just sit here anymore.”

“Technically, you’re not sitting,” says Flynn with his usual sass. Lucy gives him a look as if to say _don’t press your luck mister,_ which causes him to look down at the floor posthaste. She is not in the mood for his sass.

“Why don’t we go to the hospital cafeteria. Rufus and Jiya are there. Maybe we can brainstorm about our next jump to the Hindenburg?” He puts an arm around her shoulder and gives it a squeeze, looking at her and smiling. “Our last jump if all goes well. The doctors will call us when they have news” Lucy nods.

\-----

“So that’s it? There’s no way to save my sister when we go back to Germany, to the original timeline? Or Flynn’s family? Or Jessica?” says Lucy defeated, putting her elbows on the cafeteria table, sinking her head into her hands.

“Don’t give up yet, Lucy,” says Jiya, putting an arm around her.

“Yeah, we’ll figure out something, “says Flynn, trying to be hopeful but also feeling less and less so about ever seeing his family again or meeting Amy or Wyatt getting Jessica back.

“Well technically,” says Rufus, “it’s not the original timeline. It’s actually the first timeline, or t-1. The first hole we made was when we jumped to the Hindenburg from the original timeline. So, we still have to go back to the original timeline and pull it into this one.”

Lucy looks up and both she and Flynn look over at Rufus, a bit more hopeful.

“Yeah, we can’t change anything at the Hindenburg, otherwise, when we collapse that timeline and pull it in, too much could change,” adds Jiya. “But we may be able to do something in the original timeline.”

“Like what,” asks Lucy impatiently. Rufus and Jiya look at each other, then back at Lucy, shaking their heads in a way that makes it clear they have no idea what to do or how they will get Amy back. Lucy buries her head in her hands again letting out an exasperated huff.

Their hands are completely tied. If they change the events of the Hindenburg back to what they were, have the same people live and die that were supposed to originally live and die, then none of the things that happened after Flynn interfered would occur. Yes, she’d have Amy back. Her mom would be sick again. But that’s it. Who knows what would happen after that or what they would come back to when they collapsed that timeline into theirs? And Flynn's family would still be dead. Flynn lost in his grief.

The only reason any of them met is because Flynn stole the Mothership. The only reason he stole the mothership was because Rittenhouse killed his family and then Lucy had given him the journal. God, Lucy hates that confounded journal. She wishes she’d never given it to him. But then she’d never have met him, never have fallen in love with him. Never met any of this team. Aaarrrrggghhhh! Fucking time travel! It’s making her crazy.

Flynn’s cell phone rings and he answers it. Walking back to the table he reaches out his hand for Lucy. “Denise is awake. Let's go.”

\-----

“How’s Denise,” asks Connor worriedly, stopping the work he was doing on the computer to pass the time as he held down the fort while everyone else was at the hospital. “Did you see her?”

Lucy gives him a hug, mostly for him but she also needs one too. “She’s okay. Thank god, she’s okay.”

Connor sighs in relief and hugs Lucy tightly. “Oh, thank god.”

Lucy lets him go, heading toward room 1E where Lu and Wy had stocked up a bunch of period clothes for them, “come on, we’ll explain as we get ready for our next mission.”

Denise is going to be okay. It was a shot to the shoulder, dangerously close to her carotid artery and jugular vein. She lost a lot of blood, so much blood, and needed several transfusions to save her life. The doctors were afraid she might have suffered brain damage. Only time would tell. But she woke up. She’s a fighter and she woke up. She was groggy but she could talk. And she could move all her fingers and toes, knew who she was, where she was, what day it was. She was weak, but she still managed to give Flynn an _in your dreams_ look when he made a smart-ass comment about can he be in charge now while she’s in recovery. She was going to be okay. Thank god. Thank god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you lxghtwoodlxve for beta'ing this fic and generally putting up with my insanity. 
> 
> Sorry this is late. I'm having to adult. I don't want to do adulting! I want to write!! 
> 
> This chapter nearly killed me, but I found my writing mojo again. Chapter 15 coming today too. *happy dance*
> 
> Sorry Noah.


	15. They're Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they're back.

Watching the upgraded lifeboat whiz and whirl as it began its trip back to the Hindenburg felt surreal to Jiya. How much had changed from 2016 when the Mothership, then the Lifeboat, jumped to Germany, Flynn the enemy back then, most of them having no idea that Rittenhouse even existed. That trip was where it all started for them. Well, some of them. Flynn’s journey started well before that. Years earlier actually.

The lifeboat left with a pop, then a few hours later, it was back. Surreal wasn’t even an adequate word for this shit anymore. It all made Jiya’s head hurt.

Gears still winding down on the lifeboat, Flynn steps out first, then helps Lucy out. Wyatt hops out next, then Rufus. Jiya can’t help herself. She runs up and gives him a huge hug, holding on tighter than she should, longer than she means to. She just can’t bring herself to let go.

Will she ever get used to that horrible feeling she feels when the lifeboat doors open and she holds her breath to see who has made it back, to see if Rufus has made it back? She doesn’t think so. “You’re back. You came back to me.” Rufus hugs her too just as tightly and just as long.

“How did it go,” asks Connor. “Was Emma there?”

“It went fine, we think,” says Lucy, looking over at Flynn and Wyatt. “We managed to take Emma on a wild goose chase and keep her away from the other versions of us.”

“She didn’t have a chance to change anything,” adds Flynn, dusting himself off, clearly the one who did most of the goose chase work.

“How did you keep her off your trail,” asks Connor, hopeful they really did keep Emma from messing with anything in 1937. I mean, so far so good, everybody seemed to know everybody in the safe house, nobody disappeared, Denise was still in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, and history seemed to have remained intact. Hopefully they weren’t missing anything.

“We let her think we were there to follow our old selves and find Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels,” says Lucy. He was never on the Hindenburg; most people don’t know that. He was crucial though in using the Hindenburg to make public flights in show of what he called German might. They’d use the zeppelin to fly over German cities playing patriotic music and making pro-Hitler announcements, dropping leaflets and swastika flags. We let Emma think we were there for him.”

“We led Emma into a Nazi camp; she ended up getting detained for most of the time,” adds Lucy. “She was alone, no Rittenhouse agents with her. We think it’s just her now.”

“She’s even more dangerous this way though,” says Flynn, worry in his eyes that he somehow won’t be able to protect Lucy or the team from her. “We have to be careful. She’s cut off from everything, everyone. She’s got nothing to lose anymore.” Lucy nods.

“It would have been nice if we could’ve just killed her in 1937. Stupid time travel rules and all that _it will change the present in unknowable ways_ bullshit.” Trust Garcia Flynn to smugly state the obvious. Clearly he’s had a hell of a day.

“I’ve been working some more on enhancing our visualization of the timelines,” says Jiya, trying to change the subject. “You’ve made a few trips since we first started monitoring these, so I’ve learned a lot more.”

They all walk over to the computer console to learn the latest developments. “Here is our timeline, #26. Every time you collapse an old timeline and bring it into this one, #26 gets brighter and moves more toward the center of spacetime, the center of the cylinder.”

“Things are starting to balance out,” says Rufus in understanding.

“Yes,” affirms Jiya. “At one point, there were at least 126 timelines, well according to Lu anyway. And you can tell that took a toll on spacetime because the edges of the cylinder are uneven, with bulges in certain places. See here?” She points to edges of the cylinder that clearly show lumps and knots in some areas.

“You think that’s what Lu meant when she said spacetime was collapsing and being destroyed by all the extra timelines?” Lucy asks, her face is serious.

“Yes,” says Jiya. “But now that we’ve gotten rid of a bunch of old timelines, the irregularities are starting to fix themselves. I mean, Lu said spacetime is fluid, so it makes sense that things would even out if there was more . . . room.”

Lucy places her hand in her head, shaking it, then looks up. “Great, it looks like we’re saving spacetime and the universe, but we still have no idea how to save the people we love.”

Flynn takes a step closer to the monitor and points. “I thought you said there were supposed to be 126 timelines. I only see like 5 lines here. Where are all the others?”

“I don’t know,” answers Jiya puzzled. “And I don’t know what this means either. A few minutes ago, this line and this other line, here, were brighter, sharper and now they’re more faint, and more blurry, like they’re changing.”

Just then, the room and everything in it begins to shake. Flynn instinctively pulls Lucy behind him and draws his gun, Wyatt follows suit. They know what’s about to happen next, they’ve seen this before. They point their weapons at the center of the atrium just as another upgraded version of the lifeboat appears next to theirs, bumping into a nearby desk as it slides to a halt.

Flynn looks at Wyatt and nods as they both move closer to the new lifeboat, their guns trained on the door, not sure who is coming out given that they have the upgraded lifeboat and Lu and Wy took their old, non-upgraded one. The door opens and, to everyone’s surprise, out steps Lu and Wy, looking a bit grubbier and more run ragged, but clearly the same 126 versions of themselves they previously met.

“Did you miss us?” asks Lu.

“Weeee’re baaaaaack,” adds Wy with a smile.

\-----

Holstering his weapon, Flynn reaches up and offers Lu a hand. She takes it and jumps down, a small smile on her face. “Don’t you two have another timeline to be in, another time team you can harass?” says Flynn sarcastically.

“Ha ha,” says Wy dryly, jumping down from the lifeboat and walking over to the computer console where the rest of the team is gathered. “We come in peace.”

“Where’s Denise?” Lu and Wy say in unison, looking around the safe house, surprised she’s not there.

“She was shot, but she’s okay. She’s in the hospital recovering,” says Connor. “Didn’t you know that?”

Lu and Wy look at each other in shock. “No,” says Lu.

“The timeline’s changed,” says Wy, looking at Lu with a slight smile starting to form on his lips, hope shooting across his face. “We’re so close.”

“Close to what?” says Flynn, slightly aggravated thinking to himself that, while this duo knows a shit ton about the future, per usual, they probably aren’t going to tell them squat and are likely going to leave behind some cryptic, half-instructions that put them all in yet further danger.

“To this being over,” says Lu, looking to Flynn with a genuine smile on her face.

“How can this be almost over,” says Lucy, taking a step towards her future self, her hands starting to ball into fists. “We still have no idea how we are going to get Amy back.”

“Yes, we do,” says Lu, her smile growing bigger. “And it’s already done.”

\-----

“I figured it might be you out here,” says Flynn, surprising Lu from behind as he walks up to stand next to her.

She pulls her jacket more tightly around her. “Yeah, I’m usually better at hiding myself in these bushes. I’ve been here enough times.”

“I thought you could use a drink,” he says, handing her an opened beer, setting a few more on an old table nearby. She smiles, takes the beer and raises it up as if to say _cheers_ , _thank you_ and _bottoms up_ all at the same time. She does need a drink.

“How was the reunion? Did you meet Amy?”

“I did. She’s lovely. Definitely worth all the fuss” says Flynn, a grin on his face.

Lu smiles beamingly, “yes, she is.”

“It’s incredible what you did. What both you and Wy did to bring Amy and Jessica back.”

Lu smiles flatly. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you. It wasn’t that hard really. We already knew how to do it. We needed to get Carol and Henry Wallace to meet. Carol always said it was love at first site, but they never met in this timeline. They were supposed to meet in 1979 Berkeley. But we didn’t have a time tunnel to 1979.”

She pauses, taking a long sip of her beer. “So, we went to 1981 instead. While Cagney and Lacey were saving Denise, and you and Lucy were in DC investigating potential Rittenhouse agents, we played cupid with Carol and Henry. Got out before any of you knew we were there.”

“And Jessica?” asks Flynn, leaning back against a nearby tree, looking at Lu intently.

“She was harder to figure out how to bring back. We had to find the time tunnel Rittenhouse used to go back to 1980, prevent them from saving her brother. It was a bitch. But we found it, then collapsed the timeline early on. So it’s as if it never happened.”

“So that means Jessica was never Rittenhouse in this timeline?”

“No. She was never Rittenhouse to begin with, or ever. She was actually  murdered by a serial killer that night, by Wes Gilliam, just like you told Wyatt. So, when Wyatt and Rufus went to 1983 and kept Gilliam’s parents from hooking up, he was never born and she was never killed. None of the women he killed were. Wy and Wyatt are over at her place now having a happy reunion, I hope. I think Wy is going to try to convince them to go into counseling. They kinda need it. They have some issues.”

Lu finishes her beer and Flynn offers her another one. She gives him a small smile and takes the beer. She takes a few steps back and leans against the same tree, still looking into the house where she can see Amy and Lucy talking and laughing and smiling.

“Flynn, we tried so hard to find a way to save Lorena and Iris.” Flynn jerks his head to look at her as Lu looks down at her feet, unable to look at him. “We . . . um . . . every timeline we went to . . . we tried . . . we looked for a way.” Lu gulps back a cry. “We just could never . . .” She wipes her eyes.

Flynn reaches out, putting a hand on her arm, looking over at Lu. “It’s okay,” he says, his voice sad, a low murmur. “You got Amy back. And Jessica. That’s all that matters now.”

Lu slowly turns her head to look at Flynn, unsure if doing so will make her break apart. He deserved to have his family back goddammit. But she just didn’t know how to make it happen. “We even had a plan, Wy and I,” she continued, wiping away the tears rolling down her eyes and trying to collect herself. “If we ever found the right timeline, we knew exactly what we’d do.”

She tries to stand up a little taller, looking away from him, shaking off her thoughts. Seeing him was definitely going to make her break apart. “But we never did,” she says, holding back a sob.

“It’s okay, Lu,” he says again, this time moving closer to her and putting an arm around her, pulling her into his side.

That was all it took. She buried her head into his chest and began to cry, to really cry, to ugly cry. It had been so long since she had given in to the pain of all the years of time travel and suffering and loss. It had been so long since she’d cried. Here, in Flynn’s arms again, she let it all go as he held her, pulling her tighter into him as she sobbed.

She knows she can’t go inside and hug Amy, or see her dying mom. This isn’t her timeline. And she has no timeline to go back to now, she and Wy took care of that. They collapsed it on their way here. And all the other timelines between this one and hers have long since been collapsed. This was her last mission, their last mission. She knew it, but it still hurt so much.

At least she could see Flynn one more time, hold onto him one more time. God she missed him. She knows this isn’t _her_ Flynn, but she doesn’t care. All that matters here at the end is that she gets to hold him again, hold him one last time.

She stays in his arms for a long time and Flynn just holds her, stroking her back letting her know it’s okay. She can cry for as long as she needs. He’s there. It must have been so hard for her, he thinks, remembering all they’ve been through, all the horrible things that almost destroyed his Lucy, but ended up making her tougher than nails.

He tries to imagine what this Lucy must have gone through to become this hardened, shell of a woman, the same one he met in Sao Paulo, the one who is crying like she hasn’t allowed herself to have a single emotion for a very long time and the dam has now broken open.

He wonders what happened to her Flynn. She never speaks of him. By the way she is holding on to him, the way she is rubbing circles on his chest with one of her hands, just the way he likes it, just the way his Lucy does it, he’s guessing her Flynn is gone. Lost to the war against Rittenhouse at some point maybe.

So much loss. So much pain. He pulls Lu in closer and squeezes his arms around her even tighter. If nothing else, he can give her this.

Lu finally pulls back, wiping her face with the sleeves of her jacket, and looks up at Flynn with an apologetic smile. “I guess I needed a good cry,” she says.

“I guess you did,” he replies. “I’m glad I could be here for you.”

“Thank you,” she says, looking down. “I’m glad you were here too.”

He clears his throat. “So what happens next?” he says.

Lu looks back to the window, where Lucy and Amy are still smiling and talking. “Well, we collapsed the original timeline for you, so you guys are done.” She smiles over at Flynn, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“What about the other timelines?”

“Well, there shouldn’t be very many more. We collapsed the original one, and we collapsed our timeline, plus all the other ones in between . . .”

“You collapsed your own timeline?” Flynn interrupts, surprised, eyes wide. “How will you get back? I mean, where will you go?”

Lu looks at him with resolve. “We won’t go back. We’re done. This is the end of the line for us. Lucy and Wyatt can touch us out of existence in a few days, after we’ve had a chance to take care of a few things, and then that’s it.”

Flynn looks shocked. He’s searching for something to say but has no idea what.

“We always knew this was our final mission, Flynn,” she says matter-of-factly. “This is the way it has to be.” She grabs another beer and twists it open. “Besides,” she says with a slight smile, “our timeline sucked. Good riddance.” She raises her beer to the air and then takes a drink.

Flynn hadn’t realized this would be a final trip for them. He hadn’t really thought about it to be honest. He guesses he thought they’d never see them again and that would be that. But of course, there had to be some sort of reconciliation. If there could only be one true timeline, if spacetime was too unstable if there was more than one timeline, then that meant there could only be one Lucy. “Wow,” he says finally. “I guess I just didn’t realize.”

“It’s okay,” says Lu. “We have two days before we have to leave this timeline. Lucy, you and Amy can be together, and so can Wyatt and Jessica. Wy and I can work with Connor, Denise if she’s well enough, Rufus and Jiya to finish things up.”

“What about Emma?” asks Flynn fervently.

“We think we have a way to find the Mothership. With Rufus and Jiya’s help, we should be able to track it here in 2018, then move in.”

“I want to help,” he insists.

“Okay.”

“Can I ask you?” says Flynn, shifting his weight on his feet. “What ever happened to Carol and Nicholas Keynes? I mean, I saved them in 1888, but we didn’t see them again.”

Lu looks at him, a sad, serious look on her face. “They still died there, in Chinatown. Emma shot them.” She lets out a long, deep sigh. “I’ve always wondered about _meant to be_ versus _free will_ in all of this time travel business. All I can say is I understand it even less than I did when we started. Emma was 100% determined to kill my mom and Nicholas in 1888, and found a way to make it happen regardless.”

“Maybe that’s why,” says Flynn. Lu looks at him confused. “Maybe because Emma was so determined to kill them is why it happened, why it happened regardless of our interference. I mean, think about it. Most decisions we make in life we don’t make with 100% certainty. Instead we make the best decision possible, a little part of us wondering if we’re right, but we go ahead and dive in and hope for the best. Maybe that’s what makes something _meant to be_?”

Lu lets out a short, breathless laugh, shaking her head in amusement. “Maybe. It’s as good an explanation as any I suppose.” Three beers in and metaphysical conversations like this are just not a good idea. 

“It must be hard for you,” says Flynn looking at her, his face serious. “Never getting a chance to reconcile with your mom. I don’t know that Lucy will either,” he continues, looking into the window at his Lucy.

“I guess,” she says, finishing off her beer, but a sad look on her face. “I try not to overthink it. She made her choices. I try to hold onto the good memories I do have, and not dwell on the bad. But yes, it is hard.”

“I’m sorry Lucy,” he says, deliberately calling her by her full name, looking into her eyes.

Lu smiles and nods at him affectionately, grateful for his kind words. She shifts off the tree she’d been leaning on. “Well, I’m going to go back to the safe house. I’ll leave you to it. With your Lucy. See you tomorrow?”

Flynn smiles back at her. “Yes, tomorrow. We’ll go get Emma. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

\-----

Lu comes downstairs to the safe house kitchen area to find everyone has already gathered. “What’s everyone doing here?”

“I filled everyone in,” says Flynn. “We’re all here to help you and Wy take care of Emma and anything else that needs to be done.”

“That’s right,” says Lucy smiling appreciatively, knowing the sacrifice Lu and Wy are planning to make for the rest of them. “We’re all in this to the very end.”

Lu and Wy smile at the team. “Thank you,” she says. “To the very end then.”

“Don’t forget about me,” says Denise rolling into the kitchen in a wheelchair, Connor pushing her.

“What are you doing out of the hospital?” exclaims Lucy. “You should be resting.”

“I can rest when this is over,” says Denise. “We still have work to do.” Lucy gives her a sharp look. “Don’t worry, I won’t over do it. I promise.”

“Well since you’re here, what is the story on Rittenhouse?” asks Flynn.

“We’ve made another 846 arrests, more than 1500 warrants in the works on top of that,” says Denise. We’ve seized over $3 trillion in US dollars, which has to be a large chunk, if not all, of the Rittenhouse assets. And we’ve been able to get a number of higher-ranking Rittenhouse officials to talk, to take a deal in exchange for information. We’ll keep at it, but we really think we’ve got them all this time.”

“Everyone except Emma,” says Lucy.

“We think we can track her,” says Lu, walking over to Jiya, who is sitting at the computer. “We . . .” She stops. “Jiya, is this the timeline tracker you have up on the screen here?”

“Yeah, why?”

“What are these two timelines here?” asks Lu pointing to the screen, Wy walking over to see what she’s referring to.

“Um,” says Jiya, “they’re timelines 126 and 0, your timeline and the original one. We still have to collapse those two.”

“That can't be right,” says Lu. “We collapsed those two already, before we came here. You can see them here, just a shadow of them, they’re almost gone now.” Lu points to the two lines from yesterday that went from bright and sharp, to dull and fuzzy. They had almost disappeared from the screen.

“So then what are these two?” asks Jiya, looking back and forth from Wy to Lu, the rest of the team now gathered around the computer screen.

“I don’t know. We’ve haven’t seen these before,” says Wy.

“No matter,” says Lu, “we can go in and collapse them. Once we do that, only this timeline will exist, and hopefully spacetime will finish repairing itself. We picked up an upgraded lifeboat in timeline #125 before we collapsed it, so we're good.”

“But you guys don’t know what time or location it’s going to take you to,” says Jiya. “What if it’s not your past?”

“What do you mean?” says Lucy.

“You can’t travel to the future, none of us can,” says Jiya. “What if those are future timelines?”

“I don’t think they are,” says Lu. “Once we found out we could jump backwards, we stopped creating new timelines. Everything is the past for us.”

“Are you sure?” says Jiya, concerned that they have no way of knowing where they are going or what they are getting themselves in to.

“It’s okay, Jiya. It’ll be okay,” she offers reassuringly.

“Are you sure we can’t just leave them,” asks Wyatt.

“I’m afraid not,” says Wy. “There can only be one timeline, or the forces on time don’t line up. Don’t worry guys. We’ve been running all over spacetime collapsing timelines for months. We got this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you lxghtwoodlxve for beta'ing this fic.


	16. Now and Then Flynn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Flynn . . . 
> 
> Well, just read it. 
> 
>  
> 
> Every time I put out a new chapter, I add another chapter to the total number expected. At this rate, I will perpetually have 2 more chapters to write for the rest of my life. LOL. Really, it's close to being done. But let's be honest, I have no idea how many chapters this will be. Less than 20?

Jiya cannot let this go. It’s been nagging at her ever since she found out that Lu and Wy intended to jump back to those two timelines without having so much as a clue as to what awaits them there, let alone know to _when_ they are going. She knows they’re on some sort of kamikaze, last mission kick, probably trying to hype themselves up or some stupid shit like that, but there is something that just isn’t sitting right with her about this trip. It’s eating away at her and she’s not sure what to do.

“So, we’ll jump to this timeline first,” says Lu, pointing to the line on the computer screen closest to their own timeline as the rest of the team gathers around. “It’s nearest to us, meaning it’s where the jump started from, the further one is the timeline the jump created.”

“Why don’t you guys just wait a few days?” says Jiya, clearly not happy with this plan. “Maybe by then, we can figure out where and when these timelines go.”

“It’s fine, Jiya,” says Lu reassuringly. “And we don’t have a few days. We can only stay in this timeline for two days. Then we need to, well, be gone. We’ll just figure it out when we get there.”

Sensing Jiya’s apprehension, she walks over and puts a reassuring hand on Jiya. “Connor has the updated information we brought from the future to visualize the approximate coordinates of the tunnels. We can program those in and handle things on the ground as they evolve. We’ve done this before.”

“Yeah,” adds Wy. “One step at a time, like always. We’ll be fine. And once we’re there, you’ll know where we jumped to since you can track the lifeboat. If anything happens, you guys will know where we are.”

If someone says _it’s all going to be fine_ one more time, Jiya’s going to scream. She knows what she has to do.

Moving away from the group, Jiya sits down at a computer desk around the corner from the others and pretends to start typing. When she is sure nobody is really paying attention to her, she closes her eyes, let’s her head fall back, jumps into her vision and heads straight for the forbidden colors.

\-----

“Jiya, JIYA,” says Rufus in a panic as he holds her in his arms and shakes her to wake up. “She’s not coming out of it. Why isn’t she coming out of it?”

“Jiya, Jiya, wake up. Come on,” exclaims Lucy, her eyes full of fear. The last time this happened, Jiya had that terrible seizure and could have died. Why would she do this again? Why!

“Jiya is still having visions?” asks Lu, a mix of surprise and worry on her face.

“Yes,” says Lucy, “why? Wasn’t she having them in your timeline?”

“No,” responds Wy, “she stopped having them once we started jumping backward.”

“So, she never saw the forbidden colors with you guys?” asks Flynn, kneeling down by Jiya, deep concern in his eyes.

“No,” say Lu and Wy in unison.

Connor walks into the room and rushes over to Jiya, Rufus still holding her and trying to wake her up. “Oh my god. Another vision?”

Rufus nods. “She’s not coming out of it.”

“She won’t wake up until she’s ready,” says Connor knowingly, thinking back to his time spent with Stanley, before all he cared about was staying in the visions. Once upon a time, Stanley had actually wanted to get better. But at some point, the visions became a rush for him, like a drug, like something he had to have. Once that happened, Stanley was truly lost. But they can’t lose Jiya! “Jiya, wake up, please. Come back to us. Please,” begs Connor softly.

“Jiya!” says Rufus, a slight sob escaping his throat. “Please wake up. Please wake up.”

Just then, Jiya’s eyes fly open and she grabs Rufus by the shirt, her eyes bloodshot, wide, unblinking, full of alarm, her face nearly frozen and her body rigid. “Nap . . oln,” she says weakly, “20 . . . 13,” she finishes in a gasp. Her face goes pale, stiff, flat and Jiya falls into a seizure.

“No, no, no, Jiya. Not again,” cries Rufus.

“Let’s get her to sick bay,” says Connor. “Now! I’ll get a medical team here immediately.”

\-----

“Why would Jiya do this again,” demands Lucy, pacing outside the medical bay angrily, putting her hand on her forehead and shaking it in frustration. “She knows how dangerous these visions are. She supposed to be avoiding them. We told her to avoid them.” Tears begin to well in her eyes as Flynn moves to put his arm around her in comfort.

“What do you mean she knows they are dangerous?” asks Lu tentatively.

“She has been going into her visions when we’re away on missions. To see if Rufus is okay,” says Lucy in exacerbation. She lets out a deep sigh and continues, sounding more exhausted than on edge. “To see if we all are okay. The last vision she had she saw the forbidden colors. She said she could see the colors start to get stronger, she could see their waves.”

“How was that vision different than her other ones,” asks Wy.

“Well, Rufus thought her original visions were her seeing into future timelines,” continues Flynn, still holding onto Lucy, his arm around her rubbing small patterns on her back. “But the vision with the forbidden colors seemed to indicate that she was seeing into the past timelines.”

“Yes. Backward,” adds Lucy.

“Why did Rufus think that,” ask Lu, taking a step closer to Lucy, an intent look forming on her face.

“Because,” continues Lucy, “after she saw the colors she . . .” Lucy stops mid-sentence and looks at Flynn.

“She saw Napoleon,” he finishes, mirroring her knowing look. “That’s what she was trying to say to us. When she came out of the vision. Napoleon.”

“Napoleon 2013,” says Lucy, her eyes still intent on Flynn's, as if they are the only two in the room.

“But what does that mean?” says Flynn, still confused. “She already saw Napoleon in her last vision, with Emma. We know Emma met Napoleon once. So, did she meet him in 2013? Is that what Jiya meant?”

“Think about it,” says Lucy, puzzling it out. “What was Jiya doing before the vision? She was upset. Upset about those two unknown timelines.”

Flynn, not missing a beat, marveling for a small second at how he and Lucy had, in fact, become quite the team, continued. “So those two timelines are when Emma jumped to see Napoleon in the early 18th century maybe.”

Lu and Wy, who had been listening closely to the conversation from off to the side looking at each other slowly, eyes wide. Wy gives Lu a small nod and they begin to back away from the group slowly, careful not to draw attention.

“And when she jumped from,” says Lucy feeling triumphant that they pieced it all together, “was 2013.”

“Hey where did Lu and Wy go?” asks Flynn just as his body stiffens and he bolts upright, his hands dropping to his side, a look of shock on his face slowly turning to knowing as the truth unveils itself before him. His family was alive in 2013. There is a timeline where his family is alive. He can go there. He can see his family one last time.

He moves quickly, walking fast at first, then outright running, just as he hears the whirring of the lifeboat. His heart racing, running as fast as he can up the stairs, taking two and three at a time, going up the three flights of stairs from the medical bay in the basement to the atrium where the lifeboats were parked, Lucy running right behind him.

He makes it to the lifeboat completely out of breath, not realizing he’d been holding it as he ran, and falls to his knees as he sees one lifeboat, and then the other one, vanish into thin air. Lucy runs up behind him, out of breath herself, but stops short as she sees Flynn’s head fall into his hands in grief. Lu and Wy had taken both lifeboats, leaving Flynn with no way to see his family again.

\-----

Stepping off the lifeboat in 2013 in a remote part of San Francisco, not too far from Mason Industries where Emma would have jumped in the Mothership to meet Napoleon, Lu leans a hand on Wy and jumps down onto the grass. “This is it, Wy. This is the chance we’ve been waiting for.”

“I know,” he says. “We’ve been planning this for a long time. You’ve been planning this for a long time.”

“You know what to do?” asks Lu with a confirming nod. Of course, he knows what to do. They’ve been waiting for this day for 5 years, but it never came. And now it’s here. Oh my god, how is it here? Now’s their chance. They can’t mess this up.

“Yes,” says Wy. “I’ll go to 1812, when the picture of Napoleon in his study was painted, when Emma met him. I’ll take care of things there. Collapse the timeline into this one. Then come back here.”

Lu gave him a small smile of appreciation. He is going along with this crazy plan of hers after all. “If I’m not here, it the lifeboat isn’t here, it means everything is okay and you can meet me in DC.”

“You remember that you need to . . .” says Wy, Lu cutting him off before he can finish.

“Yes, I remember. I need to stay with the lifeboat in DC for at least an hour to see if I have any immediate side effects from the jump. If I do, I’ll get back in the lifeboat and come straight back here and wait for you.”

Wy nods. “Record everything on your phone so if you’re hurt or unconscious when you get back here, I’ll know what happened.”

“I know, Wy,” she says sternly. “Nothing will go wrong. It can’t.”

“I know you know, Lu. But we’ve never done this before. All of Mason’s calculations say it’s too dangerous to do. It will kill us. You and I both know this is a one-way trip, but how soon it will kill us is anybody’s guess. You need to be smart about this.”

Lu softens, touching Wy’s arm gently. “I know. I know. But we have to do this. We have to try. If we get there and it all goes horribly wrong for me, I’ll jump back here and you can proceed with Plan B without me. Get everyone home. Okay?”

Wy nods. “I will. Are you sure you don’t just want to go with Plan B now? Grab everyone here, today. Save ourselves a trip into another time travel abyss?”

Lu looks at him with a _we’ve been through this before and the answer is still no_ look. “You know it’s too disruptive.”

Wy holds his hands up in defeat. They have been over this before. And he’s lost the argument every time. “Okay, okay. Let’s hope Plan A works. After everything that’s happened, all the pain and suffering, let’s just make sure this works the way we need it to. Be careful.” He pulls Lu into a hug and holds her for a few lingering seconds.

“Thank you Wy,” she says quietly, still hugging him back.

Wy pulls back gently, looking at her softly. “We’ll do this Lu. Everything is going to work out.”

Stunned out of their moment of friendship and crashing over them like a rogue, unexpected wave, alarms blare simultaneously from both of their ships. Lu gives Wy an exacerbated look, “Emma.”

Wy starts for his ship, looking back at Lu. “I’ll get her to follow me, try to get her stuck in 1812. Get to DC and I’ll meet you there. Good luck!”

With that, his lifeboat begins to whistle and whirl, then pops out of sight, Emma following him.

\-----

Walking up to the small Federal-style home in Washington, DC, Lu looked down at the blue suit she’s had in the lifeboat since forever. Since they first came up with this plan. The plan that seems to be getting more stupid by the minute.

She bushes off some lint thinking to herself that if this suit doesn’t scream _I’m a federal agent_ , then she doesn’t know what will. Hopefully, it would be convincing, that she would be convincing.

At least she’s been here for over an hour now, leaving the lifeboat on the outskirts of this DC suburb, hiding it in some thick vegetation in some park. So far, no side effects from the trip thankfully. Maybe Mason was wrong. Maybe you can travel this direction in time and be fine. He’s been wrong before. Many times, actually. Maybe they have some time, after all, to get this done. Well, let’s not waste any then.

She raises a shaky hand to knock on the door, sees her own unsteadiness, then lets it fall back to her side. Get it together Lu, she thinks to herself. You can do this.

She closes her eyes, sucks in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and searches for that steely resolve she’s come to rely on in times like this. For god sake, after everything she’s been through, chasing Flynn through history, evading Nazis, fighting Rittenhouse, losing everyone she loves, collapsing time, saving the universe, this is a walk in the park. Letting out the last bit of breath, her eyes open and she looks composed, strong, invincible. Don’t fuck this up, Lu. Don’t.

She knocks twice. The door slowly opens and she looks up, from around the door's edge she sees Garcia Flynn. 2018 Garcia Flynn. From the same timeline she was just in 5 years early. She’s jumped to the future, she’s actually survived, and he’s actually here!

“Oh my god, you’re alive,” says Lu, because she is an idiot.

“I’m sorry,” says Flynn confused.

“I mean, of course you’re alive, I’m sorry. I’m Lucy Preston, with Homeland Security,” she says, trying to sound governmental, offering up the badge future Denise had made for her and Wy when she came up with this plan years ago.

Flynn looks at it intently, not sure at first if he should trust this Lucy woman, but then relaxing when he confirmed the badge was real.

“Can I come in,” says Lu. Your family is in danger and I’m here to protect you.

Flynn looks Lu up and down, clearly sizing her up, all six feet four of him unmistakably wondering why Homeland Security would send a single, um, vertically-challenged, female agent, who weighed 120 pounds wet, to protect _him_ from danger. He bites back a dry chuckle, catches himself (maybe she’s stronger than she looks), steps back, and motions her to come inside.

As she walks into the hallway of the Flynn residence, Lu can’t believe her plan is actually working. So far anyway. Hey, she’ll take it after all the hell she’s been through over the last 5 years. By all accounts, she probably shouldn’t even be alive at this point.

I mean, first of all, the chances that she would be able to jump from 2013 to 2018 in the same timeline were slim to none, let alone survive it once she got here. If there is one thing Mason, Rufus and Jiya always agreed on, in every timeline, it was that you can’t jump to the future. Yet here she was.

Hell, the fact that they even found a timeline where Flynn’s family was still alive that they could jump to was a damn miracle. She had given up on that years ago. But it’s here. It exists. She’s in it. She can hear Lorena and Iris down the hall talking to each other. She gasps a little when she hears Iris’ small voice.

And then, of course, the fact that they managed to find a timeline where Rittenhouse’s plan to kill the Flynns hadn’t been set in motion yet, so they were still alive in 2018, actually alive in what would be the present day back in timeline 26 where Lucy and Flynn and the rest of the team are now, waiting for them. That’s a fucking miracle too.

What is that? Three miracles so far? God, she hopes she hasn’t used all her miracles up yet. She needs at least six more before this is all over. She can almost hear Wy whispering, _one step at a time_.

She sucks in a deep breath, command settling over her again, and turns to look at Flynn. “We’ve just learned that you and your family are in danger. A hit has been put out on you for some work you did back in 2013 looking into an international criminal organization called Rittenhouse.”

Flynn looked shocked. “Rittenhouse? I remember the name, I remember looking into them. But nothing ever came of my investigation. They were a black hole. The case was dropped and I’ve not heard of them for five years.”

“Well they’ve heard of you,” says Lu with authority. “And your wife and daughter, Lorena and Iris.”

Flynn looked at Lu in disbelief, “how do you know . . .”

“I told you, I’m with Homeland. We know everything (*ha!*). Rittenhouse is dangerous. They’ve been around for over a century, operating from the shadows, staying hidden is their biggest advantage. But you know about them. My team has been investigating them for 7 years now. We are closing in on them but just learned about a hit put on you and your family. That’s why I’m here.”

“A hit,” hisses Flynn, grabbing Lu by the arm to pull her into the study away from where his girls might hear them. “You mean they plan to kill my family?”

“Yes,” says Lu, pulling her arm away, looking at him with unwavering resolve. “I’m here to bring you all in, put you into the Witness Protection program. At least until we can crack down on the rest of Rittenhouse and make sure you’re all safe.”

“You came alone?”

“My partner, Agent Logan, will be here soon. Once he’s here, we leave. He’s making sure our extraction route is clear.”

Flynn stiffens upright, fear, then anger, then understanding flashing across his face. He nods at Lu. “How much time do we have?”

“Go pack a small backpack for each of you. That’s it. Nothing more. You don’t need much. I’ll call Agent Logan and get his ETA.”

She turns on her heels, heads out the hallway, leaving a stunned Flynn watching behind her. She lets out a long, deep sigh once she’s out of sight. Oh fuck, that was hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you lxghtwoodlxve for beta'ing this fic.
> 
> For those of you that know your Emma, I'm pretty sure she was not at Mason Industries in 2013, so I made that up. But hey, I'm making this whole thing up, so . . . 
> 
> :)


	17. Plan A

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they execute Plan A.

“Wy, where the hell are you?" Lu whispers into her phone. There are dozens of reasons why Wy might not be here yet. Shit, maybe even hundreds. He could be dead in 1812, or stuck in 1812, or both. Maybe he made it back, collapsed the 1812 timeline, but is stuck in 2013 now, where the time tunnel opened and closed. Or dead in 2013.

"I'm at Flynn's place, I've made contact, they're packing. God, I hope you're on your way." She trails off at the end, almost as if to herself.

Fuck. Why does her mind always go to _dead in a ditch_ every time somebody doesn’t show up? 

Okay, maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he got the plan wrong and is meeting her right now at the Flynn residence in 2013? No, that can’t be it. That was Plan B, and Plan B was only going to happen if Plan A didn’t work. 

Plan B would’ve been too disruptive. They’d have to explain why the Flynn’s were in 2013 one minute, then in 2018 the next, and a different 2018 at that. They’d have to say they were in a coma, together, at the same time, or something stupid like that. Or tell them about time travel, which is equally stupid.. They’d need a shit ton of therapy in either of those two scenarios. Iris included. 

Plan A was better, less disruptive. Plan A was always to extract the Flynns from the same time they would be bringing them back to. They’re bringing them back to November 2018 in timeline #26, so they have to extract them from November 2018 in timeline # . . . uh . . . well, whatever damn number this damn timeline is. The timeline created when Emma jumped to meet Napoleon back when she was still working for Connor. The timeline that’s going to allow them to save Flynn’s family.

If Wy ever gets here. “Dammit, where is he?” She mumbles under her breath, looking out the window in the darkening evening, trying his cell phone yet again.  

Lu feels a sudden, sharp pain in her stomach and doubles over, letting out a loud groan. “What the . . .,” she says through clenched teeth, her eyes squeezed shut in pain. She hobbles over to a nearby chair, falling into it just as another searing pain rushes through her, her leg this time. God, she hopes the Flynn’s didn’t hear her cry out. 

She takes a deep breath, holds it, then leans back so she can get a look at her stomach where the pain is coming from. She gasps when she lifts her shirt and sees a ragged-edge burn mark the size of her hand near her ribs.

“Shit,” she says, as she lets out a rapid exhale. “That hurts.”

She lifts her suit pant leg and sees another burn on the back of her calf. This one is worse, deeper. Tendons and tissue are sticking out in the meaty part of this one. She groans again, rolling her eyes a bit, and then sucks in a few deep breaths hoping she can get back on her feet again. Fuck, she’s got to get the Flynn’s out

Fuck. 

Her cell phone rings and she fumbles with her hands trying to get them to work so she can answer it. She finally manages to get it by the third ring. 

“Lu,” yells Wy, breathless. “It’s me. I’m almost at the house. Go out the back. Emma’s here. You hear me? Go out the back. Go straight, go through their backyard neighbor’s house, and meet me in front of that house.”

Lucy grunts. 

"Can you hear me, Lu? Meet me on the next street over. Use the back neighbor's house to make your escape. I'm in a black SUV."

“Okay,” says Lu breathlessly, adrenaline kicking in and getting to her feet.

Flynn rounds the corner into the study to see Lu just as she’s standing up, sweat pouring off her brow, clutching her stomach. “Are you okay?”

Lu whips her head around as she hears a car screech up to the front of the house and a car door slam. Fuck, Emma.

“We have to get out of here,” she yells. “Now.”

Flynn recognized that look of dread on her face and doesn’t miss a beat. He takes Lu’s arm and leads her to the back, where a sleeping Iris is already ready to go in Lorena’s arms. Lu nods at her and they run out the back door, the screen slamming behind them.

Lu can hear Wy still yelling through the phone. She can’t hear what he’s saying, but she yells back anyway. “We’re almost there Wy. Front of the house.” She’s nearly forgotten about the pain and is moving as if her life depends on it, no, as if Flynn’s life depends on it. It does.

They make it through the neighbor's yard, edging along the side of the house. She hears the screen again, the one they'd just come out of. Emma. God, she hates that woman. "Black SUV," she shouts at Flynn. "Just ahead, in front of this house." Flynn nods and leads the way, Lorena and Iris behind him, Lu following.

He peeks out from the side of the house and sees the SUV. “Come on, it’s clear,” says Wy in a loud whisper, motioning them.

Lu can hear Emma's footsteps getting closer as they make a break from the edge of the house towards the SUV. Flynn, Lorena, and Iris reach the car first, Wy helping them in, but Lu falls behind, her leg giving out as she tries to run with it.

With his girls nearly in the car, Wy running to get in the driver seat, Flynn sees Lu and runs back to help her. “Here, lean on me,” he says. She does, but he’s too tall. She groans when Flynn picks her up, cradles her. “It’s okay, I got you.”

“Emma,” she says breathlessly, looking at him. “Gun.”

Two shots ring out just as he pushes her into the front seat of the car, him right behind her.

\----- 

“Lu? Lu? Are you okay,” exclaims Wy he peels out down the street, leaving Emma, and her gun, in a cloud of burnt rubber. “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know? What’s the matter with her?” says Flynn examining Lu as she rests her head on his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she gasps. “Water. I just need water.” Flynn grabs a nearby water bottle from his bag and helps Lu drink. She takes a few deep breaths, stabilizing herself, sucking down the pain as best she can.

Sitting up, she wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. “I’m fine. It’s okay. We just need to get out of here.”

She looks back at Lorena and Iris in the back seat. “Are you guys okay?”

Lorena nods, still looking rattled and clutching Iris in a mother’s death grip, but unharmed.

“Is Iris okay? Is she asleep? How is she asleep?” asks Lu, not believing anyone could have slept through an elaborate home escape ending in gunfire. 

“She’s been sick,” says Lorena weakly, her voice shaky. “We’d given her some cold medicine just before you got to the house. It always makes her so tired.”

Lu switches between nodding and shaking her head no at the same time, confused. 

“Good. I mean, good,” she says, finally going with the nod. “The less Iris remembers of this night, the better. Right?

She turns to look at Flynn. “What about you? Are you okay?”

He looks down at his arm, blood trickling down it. Lu sees it and gasps, reaching for his arm to take a closer look.

“It’s just a graze,” he says, pulling his arm back, covering it with a shirt he’s pulled from his bag. “It’s fine. Really, it’s fine. Just a nick.”

Lu gives him an incredulous look, then lets it go. “Okay. Just make sure you stop the bleeding.”

Flynn nods, lifting up the shirt. “See, it’s already stopped.” Lu lets out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Fuck. That was too close.

Shifting in the seat, trying hard to not remember her burns, Lu turns to Wy. “What the hell happened? I thought you were going to get rid of Em . . . I mean ensure the escape route was clear.”

“I did,” says Wy, exacerbated, still driving erratically. “I mean, I tried. She wasn’t supposed to follow me here.”

“She followed you here,” shouts Flynn, listening to every word and clearly pissed. “What kind of federal agents are you people? Extraction 101 teaches you that you _don’t bring the assassin to the home of the target_ _._ ” Flynn slowly annunciating each word to emphasize his complete lack of faith in their abilities.

Lu looks over to Wy with wide eyes, clearly hoping this wasn't actually happening and as if saying, now what? Wy gives her a slight, sideways smile, then pulls a tranquilizer gun out from hiding between his legs, shoots Flynn three times in the chest, Lorena once, as Lu cups her hands to her face and screams.

\-----

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” says Lu, trying to push an unconscious Flynn off of her and lean him up against the car door. She glances back to see Lorena unconscious too, resting her head comfortably on the seat rest, Iris still sound asleep in her arms.

“You could have warned me you were going to do that,” yells Lu.

“Yeah, I’ll just announce I’m going to sedate the Flynn right in front of him before I do it. That makes sense.”

“Sorry, sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to . . . do it so soon. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. We had to do it anyway, to get them back to 2018, so now is as good a time as any. He wasn’t going to let up, ya know.”

“I know,” she says with a nod, looking over at him, lifting a shaky hand to move a strand out hair out of his face. “Are you sure you didn’t kill him? I mean, three darts?”

"He's a big guy. Don't worry, I made sure all the doses were right. He should be out for about two hours, give or take. Her too." He nods towards the back seat. "At least we didn't have to tranq the kid."

Lu nods, looking forward now, the freeway stretched out ahead of them. "I'm glad. Hopefully, she'll stay asleep."

“We lost Emma.”

“Yeah, for now. What happened?”

“I thought I had trapped her in the time tunnel on the way back from 1812. I collapsed it while she was in it,” explains Wy, rubbing his forehead. “But I guess she was too fast, or I miscalculated somewhere. I swear she was in there, Lu.”

Lu nods as if to say go on.

“I got back to 2013, saw you weren’t there, then jumped straight here. I didn’t know she was still on our trail until I caught her tailing me on the way to the Flynn’s. I couldn’t lose her. And you know the rest.”

Lu rests her head in her hand. “Okay. Well, what do we do now?”

An agonizing pain shoots through Lu as she doubles over again, screaming out and grabbing her shoulder.

Wy swerves on the road, “Lu? Lu? What is it?”

“Side effects,” she hisses through clenched teeth, “of traveling . . . here.”

Lu rolls up her sleeve and shows Wy the newly formed burn on her shoulder, wincing as the shirt scrapes the open, oozing wound.

"What the fuck?" says Wy. "That looks like a mixed second- and third-degree burn."

“It is,” says Lu, regaining her composure, but moving gingerly, still gasping. “From the inside out.”

“Oh fuck,” says Wy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you lxghtwoodlxve for beta'ing this fic.


End file.
